Sialkot Chamber of Commerce & Industries: a prestigious example of CSR

This paper makes contribution to the literature by examining the role of corporate social responsibility and chamber of commerce for the growth and development of industry and local community. It sketches an investigative structure that incorporate insight from the corporate social responsibility and chamber of commerce literature with the purpose to investigate- what are different social responsible activities undertaken by the Sialkot chamber of commerce to strengthen the industry and social sector. The research was carried out through secondary data, as well as, making some interviews with chambers members, businessmen and people belong to local community. This paper has found that SCCI has played phenomenal role in the local community, and initiated and supported various projects and plans, some of them are Sialkot international airport, dry port, city package for roads and infrastructure development in Sialkot, elimination of child program, Sialkot business and commerce center, Sialkot export processing zone, Sialkot public school, sports industries development center, Sialkot tanneries zone, and study seerat center. SCCI is the most effective and active chamber of Pakistan. Even all the world, there would be few examples that has so appreciably converted its locality of influence in terms of infrastructure and scope of societal wellbeing. This paper contributes by highlighting the importance of chamber by performing corporate social responsibility and its strong positive impact on industry and people of Sialkot. It is also prime example public-private relationship as well as for the other chambers and institution of Pakistan to take responsibility and make better and happy world. The limitations of this paper are a lot dependence on secondary data and its focus on only positive achievements of SCCI. The future research can look at this success by involving all the stakeholders who have been benefited or not, as well as, conducted and investigated empirical research to measure the impact of these projects on business and citizens of Sialkot. Key Words: Corporate social responsibility, Sialkot Chamber of commerce, achievements and success,      child labor, Pakistan

Role of Medicine Patent Pool (MPP) in Resolving Conflict between Patents and Access to Essential Medicines

This paper analyses the issue from both international intellectual property law and access to medicine with reference to contributions made by Medicine Patent Pool (MPP), an alternate model of resolving conflict between patent protection of medicines and access to medicine. Adoption of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, under framework of World Trade Organisation (WTO), has significantly altered the enforcement standards of intellectual property rights, especially patent rights (Halewood, 1997).  Although, TRIPS Agreement introduces minimum standards of intellectual property rights protection but in case of pharmaceutical patents, they have impact on access to essential medicines because of strict standards (Kojo, 2018). This paper aims at analysing role of MPP towards solving conflict between patents on medicines and access to medicine

Does green finance support to reduce the investment sensitivity of environmental firms?

This study aims to examine the financing cash flow sensitivity into the firm investment of Environment Sensitive Firms (ESFs). To improve the robustness of our analysis, we implement cluster regression to analyze the 300- firms listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The findings of this study indicate that high-ESFs have more financing cash flow volatility in firm investment than low-ESFs. The firms can reduce this volatility by integrating green finance with their financing cash flows. Green finance helps to implement sustainable investment practices and reduces investment volatility by providing the solution to societal issues. It also assists to generate stable cash flows, lower investment risk, and a better governance structure

Directly printable compact chipless RFID tag for humidity sensing

In this letter, 8-bit paper based printable chipless tag is presented. The tag not only justifies the green electronic concept but also it is examined for sensing functionality. The compact tag structure comprises of seven L-shaped and one I-shaped dipole structure. These conducting tracks/dipole structures are of silver nano-particle based ink having a conductivity of 1.1 × 107 S/m. Each conducting track yields one bit corresponding to one peak. The tag design is optimized and analyzed for three different flexible substrates i.e. paper, Kapton® HN, and PET. The tag has ability to identify 28 = 256 objects, by using different binary combinations. The variation in length of particular conducting strip results in a shift of peak for that specific conducting track. This shift corresponds to logic state-1. The response of the tag for paper, Kapton® HN, and PET substrates is observed in the frequency band of 2.2–6.1 GHz, 2.4–6.3 GHz, and 2.5–6.5 GHz, respectively. The tag has an attractive nature because of its easy printability and usage of low-cost, flexible substrates. The tag can be deployed in various low-cost sensing applications

Combined experimental and theoretical study of poly(aniline-co-pyrrole) oligomer

Quantum mechanical calculations are performed to establish the structure of an oligomer of aniline and pyrrole [Poly(Ani-co-Py)], through comparison of experimental and theoretically calculated properties, including conductivity. The copolymer was synthesized through chemical oxidative polymerization and then confirmed from the experimental IR, UV-vis, mass spectra, elemental, XRD, TGA, and SEM analysis. Quantum mechanical calculations are performed at Density Functional Theory (DFT) and Time dependent DFT (TD-DFT) methods for the electronic and spectroscopic properties of the oligomer. A very nice correlation is found between the theory and experiment which consequences the structure of Poly(Ani-co-Py). Poly(Ani-co-Py) is not explored like other conducting polymers; however, by tuning this molecular structure, the electro-active nature of this material can be enhanced adequately

Role of Medicine Patent Pool (MPP) in Resolving Conflict between Patents and Access to Essential Medicines

This paper analyses the issue from both international intellectual property law and access to medicine with reference to contributions made by Medicine Patent Pool (MPP), an alternate model of resolving conflict between patent protection of medicines and access to medicine. Adoption of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement, under framework of World Trade Organisation (WTO), has significantly altered the enforcement standards of intellectual property rights, especially patent rights (Halewood, 1997).  Although, TRIPS Agreement introduces minimum standards of intellectual property rights protection but in case of pharmaceutical patents, they have impact on access to essential medicines because of strict standards (Kojo, 2018). This paper aims at analysing role of MPP towards solving conflict between patents on medicines and access to medicine

Factors Affecting the Consumer Purchasing Decisions of Perishable Foods: Exploring the Attitudes and the Preferences

The present study is designed to make a comprehensive understanding of the attitude of the urban consumers and explore the factors involved in dealing with the perishable food of certain kinds. The rise of the middle class stipulates the enhancement of the shopping environment; hence witnessing a substantial increase of the number of the supermarkets in developing countries like Bangladesh will not be surprising. A number of urban supermarkets in recent times start selling perishable foods that were once available in Bangladesh only in flea markets (Kaccha Bazaar). However, due to the lack of proper infrastructure, agro-based perishable food reaches the urban market via a long process of chain mediations and raises concerns about quality and price for both retailers and consumers. Very often the attitudes of consumers regarding perishable foods are unknown and their preferences remain unidentified. This high level of uncertainty regarding the attitude of consumers and the unpopularity regarding overall food quality need to be resolved to ensure the continuity of the business and guarantee the quality of the products. This has made the study of the consumers’ attitude towards perishable food, especially relevant for emerging economies like Bangladesh. The data is collected from one hundred (100) consumers, who buy food regularly from both super-shops and flea markets in Dhaka city. The collected data are analyzed in terms of factors like importance, expectation and perceived actual level of value to show the gap in terms of perishable foods involved

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