ISO Certifications: Trends & Scope in Pakistan

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the trends and scope of ISO Certifications awarded in Pakistan, based on survey and literature review during last decade from 2004-2014. This research is descriptive & exploratory in nature. Data source for the study is ISO Survey of Management System Standard Certifications – 2014 and literature review on ISO Certification from Pakistan’s context. Analysis of data is carried out using statistical tools i.e. SPSS, Excel. The analysis of data shows that the number of certifications awarded over a period of time represents continuous positive increasing trends & wide scope for adoption of ISO in Pakistan in most of industrial and business sectors not limited to exports only.  Increasing trends are predicting good future of ISO certification in Pakistan and a great business opportunity for certification bodies and career opportunities for professionals. It also depicts commitment to Quality Management Practices & organizational competitiveness. It could have long lasting effects on import and export sectors also and new investments in Pakistan. Negative impacts could be financial challenges for smaller firms as they could invest on these certifications to compete in market. This paper could be very useful for students and researchers to further investigate in this area and a knowledge sources. On the basis of ISO Survey (2014), it could be asserted that there is a strong potential for positive trends & scope of ISO certifications in Pakistan in coming years in different business sectors. Keywords: ISO, Certifications, Trends, Quality Management, Competitivenes

Potential Strategies for Improving Pain Management in the Opioid Patients: The Clinical Challenge

The rates of opioid prescription and use have continued to increase over the last few decades. In turn, a greater number of patients suffer from opioid tolerance. Treatment of acute pain is a clinical challenge for these patients. Acute pain can arise from common occurrences like surgical pain and pain resulting from the injury. P-glycoprotein (p-gp) is a transporter at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) associated with a decrease in the analgesic efficacy of morphine. Peripheral inflammatory pain (PIP) is a pain state known to cause a change in p-gp trafficking at the BBB. P-gp traffics from the nucleus to the luminal surface of endothelial cells making up the BBB. This surface where circulating blood interfaces with the endothelial cell is where p-gp will efflux morphine back into circulation. Osmotic minipumps were used as a long-term delivery method in this model of opioid tolerance in female rats. PIP induced p-gp trafficking away from nuclear stores showed a 2-fold increase when animals were exposed to opioids for 6 days. This observation presents a possible relationship between p-gp trafficking and the challenges of treating post-surgical pain in opioid tolerant patients. This could reveal potential strategies for improving pain management in these patients

Gastroprotective potential and mechanisms of action of Hedera nepalensis

Hedera nepalensis (H. nepalensis) , belonging to the family Araliaceae, is a medicinal plant traditionally used to treat stomach problems. The current study investigated the gastroprotective potential and the mechanism of action of H. nepalensis in diclofenac-and ethanol-induced ulcer models. Anti-oxidant and lipid peroxidation inhibitory prospects of H. nepalensis were checked out by free radical scavenging assay and UV spectrophotometer respectively. Effect of H. nepalensis on the pH, gastric total acidity of gastric juice and protective effects of H. nepalensis against ulcer models have been examined. Histopathological studies have been carried out. The aqueous methanol extract of H. nepalensis (100 µg/mL) showed anti-oxidant (83.55%) and lipid peroxidation inhibitory (70.88%) potential at 1000 µg/mL; the extract had no buffer potential. The extract (400 mg/kg) significantly (81.12% and 63.46%) showed gastroprotective effect in diclofenac and ethanol-induced rat ulcer models respectively. Histopathological studies confirmed the biochemical findings. FTIR analysis showed the presence of carboxylic acid, alkanes, conjugated alkanes, aldehydes and alkyl-aryl ethers. Gallic acid, M-coumaric acid and quercetin were found by HPLC analysis. H. nepalensis exhibited significant protection against diclofenac and ethanol induced gastric damage by anti-oxidant and lipid peroxidation suppression effects suggesting potential broad utility in treatment of diseases characterized with gastric damage

The Assessment and Mapping of Urban Visual Pollution through an Assembly of Open Source Geospatial Tools

Urban surroundings and spaces are losing their identity due to the visual pollution in the urban panorama of already densely populated cities in the developing countries. Quantitative assessment of visual pollution and its spatial mapping are very recent and relatively un-explored branches of urban studies. The diversity of visual pollution objects (VPOs) and their traits, the subjectivity of observers, the scale of urban space and dependency on subjective variables are the key challenges for quantification during visual pollution assessment (VPA). A paper-based score-card type VPA tool using Analytical Hierarchy Process to addressthese issues has previously been developed. However, considering the challenges associated with the deployment of paper-based tool for VPA (which include the inability to handle variety of data types such as text, numeric, geolocation, images, etc.), the natural progression is the development of a mobile-based solution which matches the fast-growing mobile penetration rate of urban centres and provides a turn-key solution to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in primary data collection. On the other hand, academic research on the spatial mapping of visual pollution has slightly progressed to explore its cartographic dimension. This research presents a spatial decision support system comprising of a combination of open source tools to collect, store and present VPA data for any urban space of any scale. The system employs Open Data Kit (ODK) to build its mobile-based VPA tool which can be used to collect VPO attributes using any Android device. The collected data is streamed to a web-based data management module of the systemin real time which is built upon ODK Aggregate and PostgreSQL. Furthermore, the web-based visualisation module of the system is built upon some other major open source tools including OpenGeo Suite and PHP.The visualisation module presents the results of visual pollution index (VPI) in the form of a web-based dashboard containing real-time choropleth maps which can be filtered for any specific VPO. This research demonstrates the strengths of open geospatial tools to solve challenges of primary data collection on a diverse range of VPOs along with the systematic capturing of their spatial location and visual images. Furthermore, it proves the ability of open source web mapping tools to display visual pollution assessments in most appropriate cartographic representation. Resultantly, it offers the practitioner urban planners a tested mechanism to assess and map the levels of urban visual pollution in an urban space and help them take effective measures to improve the visual image of the city

Political Background of the Bahawalpur, Before and After Bahawalpur State

The paper examines the political background of Bahawalpur under the influence of British regime, Bahawalpur and Independence Movement. Nawab Muhammad Bahawal Khan Khamis had always taken deep interest in Educational, Religious and Literary activities of Bahawalpur state and hence had respect from leaders of all religion, race and caste. On the occasion of independence, when Pakistan came into being, public of state, and Nawab both voted to join Pakistan. State administration was highly organized and constituted supereme council, special council and supreme court of justice

Prevalence of Black Quarter in Association with Patho-Morphological Alterations in Affected Tissues at Different Zones of Punjab-Pakistan

Background: Blackleg or Black Quarter (BQ) is a serious bacterial disease caused by Clostridium chauvoei. It causes edematous and gaseous changes in skeletal muscles of animals. The study was designed to find prevalence of BQ in 6 districts of Punjab, Pakistan from June 2018 to June 2019.Methods: Animals were randomly monitored, and selected in each union council regardless of age, sex and species, but lameness and hyperthermia were the selection parameters. A proforma was used to record the experimental readings of each animal. A total of 1500 swab samples from bovines (cattle and buffaloes) were processed through conventional PCR and culture sensitivity tests to examine the comparative diagnostic efficacy and suitability of the test.Results: Sensitivity and specificity of culture tests were 87.6% and 34.19% respectively, whereas PCR demonstrated 81% and 47.3% results for the said aspects, respectively. Alpha toxin gene (Ccta) was amplified at 52.2oC yielding an amplicon size of 1400 base pairs. Area wise and season wise prevalence of each animal was also determined. The prevalence of BQ in cattle was significantly higher (P 0.05) in Lahore (0%) and Nankana Sahib (8%) which belonged to the canal irrigated zones.Conclusion: There was higher prevalence of BQ in different areas of Punjab, Pakistan that show the higher risk of disease transmission. A systematic surveillance system is essential to regularly monitor the disease incidence and prevalence in these areas of Pakistan.Keywords: Black Quarter; Prevalence; Pathological; Ruminants;  Zone

Thermal-aware resource allocation in earliest deadline first using fluid scheduling

Thermal issues in microprocessors have become a major design constraint because of their adverse effects on the reliability, performance and cost of the system. This article proposes an improvement in earliest deadline first, a uni-processor scheduling algorithm, without compromising its optimality in order to reduce the thermal peaks and variations. This is done by introducing a factor of fairness to earliest deadline first algorithm, which introduces idle intervals during execution and allows uniform distribution of workload over the time. The technique notably lowers the number of context switches when compare with the previous thermal-aware scheduling algorithm based on the same amount of fairness. Although, the algorithm is proposed for uni-processor environment, it is also applicable to partitioned scheduling in multi-processor environment, which primarily converts the multi-processor scheduling problem to a set of uni-processor scheduling problem and thereafter uses a uni-processor scheduling technique for scheduling. The simulation results show that the proposed approach reduces up to 5% of the temperature peaks and variations in a uni-processor environment while reduces up to 7% and 6% of the temperature spatial gradient and the average temperature in multi-processor environment, respectively

Crystal engineering with pyrazolyl-thiazole derivatives: structure-directing role of π-stacking and σ-hole interactions

The synthesis and X-ray characterization of 1-(2-(3-(4-bromophenyl)-5-(4-methoxyphenyl)-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-4-methylthiazol-5-yl)ethanone (7), ethyl 2-(5-(4-bromophenyl)-3-(4-chlorophenyl)-4,5-dihydropyrazol-1-yl)thiazole-4-carboxylate (8) and 2-(5-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-phenyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-N′-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzylidene)thiazole-4-carbohydrazide (10) are described in this manuscript. The structure-directing role of a variety of noncovalent interactions has been analyzed energetically using DFT calculations and Hirshfeld surface analysis. Moreover, the existence and importance of halogen and chalcogen bonding interactions have been analyzed by using the quantum theory of atoms in molecules and the noncovalent interaction index (NCIplot).Fil: Ahmed, Muhammad Naeem. University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir; PakistánFil: Madni, Murtaza. Quaiad-i-Azam University; PakistánFil: Anjum, Shaista. University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir; PakistánFil: Andleeb, Saiqa. University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir; PakistánFil: Hameed, Shahid. Quaiad-i-Azam University; PakistánFil: Khan, Abdul Majeed. Federal Urdu University of Arts; Pakistán. University Road; PakistánFil: Ashfaq, Muhammad. University of Sargodha; PakistánFil: Tahir, Muhammad Nawaz. University of Sargodha; PakistánFil: Gil, Diego Mauricio. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Instituto de Biotecnología Farmacéutica y Alimentaria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tucumán. Instituto de Biotecnología Farmacéutica y Alimentaria; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Facultad de Bioquímica, Química y Farmacia. Instituto de Química Orgánica; ArgentinaFil: Frontera, Antonio. Universidad de las Islas Baleares; Españ