Promoting female participation in professional development programmes

A recent publication of the Ministry of Education, Islamabad, shows that the province of Sindh has a population of over 30 million. The overall literacy rate in this province is 46.7 %, while the female literacy rate is 35.4%. However, in the rural areas of Sindh the female literacy rate is 13.11% against the male literacy rate of 52.1%. There are many social, cultural and economic factors that inhibit females from availing opportunities on an equal basis with the other segments of society. The literature also reveals that due to the above-mentioned factors females are confined to play a passive role in general and in the education sector in particular. According to a recent UNDP publication, there is considerable disparity between males and females in terms of professional development. Considering the importance of professional development of females in the education sector in Sindh, the Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED), under the Pakistan Non- Government Initiatives (PNI-II), took an initiative to launch a project titled ‘Strengthening the Capacity of NGOs/CBOs’. The project targeted to provide opportunities of professional development to 258 individuals, but the actual number of those who graduated was 388, considerably exceeding the planned target. Out of 388, 68 % (262) were females, which show the enthusiasm and commitment of the participants, collaborating NGOs/CBOs and AKU-IED towards the professional development of females. Through this initiative, females were trained as ‘agents of change’ to motivate their communities towards education of their children, in particular the girl child. This presentation unfolds the learning experiences of the USAID Project-III team in promoting female participation in professional development programmes at AKU-IED

Social commerce in e-business of Pakistan: opportunities, challenges and solutions

social media make ultimate building blocks in the development of novel approaches in e-business of Pakistan with the conjuncture of Web 2.0 social media has a variety of application domain including social commerce. S-commerce is redesigning modern e-business with promising economic technological and social outcrop. Customers keep their expectations higher always, so precisely all business are trying to exceed the customers' expectations with pre and post-sale interaction on social networking sites like face book or Twitter accounts. Customers can interact, look and compare company products, reviews and feedback in their social circle friends of friends of friends. This paper proposes a survey about prospects of social commerce in e-business of Pakistan. In addition, this paper would proposes research framework for foster future e-business opportunities, challenges and provide a solution to build up buyers trust as well as to enhance the interactive online buying process in local e-business of Pakistan using social media

The future of data privacy and security concerns in Internet of things

A global, immersive, invisible, ambient network computing environment built through the continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases,and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things. The idea is to live in connected world. Altogether varieties of connected objects from smart home appliances like televisions, laundry machines,thermostats, refrigerators to Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) are going to conserve the potential of IoT connectivity in all paces of future smart world. However, it has high importance to preserve adherence of enormous benefits of IoT connectivity, which might lead to unseen security and privacy issues and vulnerabilities that will cause various malicious attacks including waterhole, ransomware, eavesdropping, and others to exploit the potential of smart objects. This paper will present and forecast advanced concepts for end-to end security and privacy issues in a highly distributed, heterogeneous and dynamic network of IoT devices, which may reveal a holistic approach of device identification, authentication, and management, security, and privacy concerns

Development of Electromyography Signal Signature for Forearm Muscle

AbstractElectromyography (EMG) measures muscle response or electrical activity in response to a nerve's stimulation of the muscle. EMG is generally acquired through surface and needle or wire electrodes. The needle or wire electrodes are usually used by clinicians in a clinical setting. This paper concentrates on surface electromyography (sEMG) signal that is acquired in a research laboratory since sEMG is increasingly being recognized as the gold standard for the analysis of muscle activation. The sEMG can utilized for establishing signal signature for forearm muscles that becomes an important input in development of rehabilitative devices. This paper discusses the establishment of sEMG signal signature of female and male subjects for forearm muscles such as extensor carpi radialis, flexor carpi radialis, palmaris longus and pronator teres based on movements such as wrist extension and flexion, hand open and close, and forearm supination and pronation. This was achieved through the use of Butterworth Bessel, Elliptic and Chebyshev filters. The sEMG signal signature could be useful in the development of rehabilitation device of upper extremities

Knowledge, attitude and practices towards consumption of caffeine containing drinks among the student population of Ras al-Khaimah medical and health sciences university, UAE

Background: Caffeine, world’s most widely consumed and legally accepted psychoactive substance which is commonly found ingredient in many drinks like coffee, tea, carbonated drinks and energy drinks. The objective was to explore how much dependent are the teenagers and young adults on caffeine containing drinks, reasons and circumstances for the consumption and to know the knowledge and attitude of the consumers about the health effects of the caffeine containing drinks.Methods: A validated questionnaire was administered randomly to about 298 students from MBBS, BDS, B Pharma and Nursing programmes of RAK Medical and Health Sciences University (RAKMHSU).Results: Out of 298 students in the study, 97% (n=290) of them drink caffeinated beverages in the form of coffee (53%), tea (43%), energy drinks (17%), carbonated drinks (18%) and all of the above (11%). The major reasons for consuming varied, where more than half of them gave the reason as to keep them awake for study purpose (53%), to get refreshed (51%), taste and flavour (49%). About 56% were of an opinion that they do experience different symptoms if they don’t consume their daily caffeine intake. 54% students admitted their caffeine consumption has been increased after joining the university. When knowledge and attitude were questioned, 63% of them think caffeine addiction is a health issue and majority of them were aware of the ingredients of these drinks but not the safest amount.Conclusions: Drinking caffeine containing drinks by the students are variable from different sources, so monitoring is necessary for the daily intake and there is need for educational programmes about the health effects related to high consumption of caffeine.

Disparities in cardiovascular research output and disease outcomes among high-, middle- and low-income countries - An analysis of global cardiovascular publications over the last decade (2008-2017)

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Health research is crucial to managing disease burden. Previous work has highlighted marked discrepancies in research output and disease burden between high-income countries (HICs) and low- and lower-middle-income countries (LI-LMICs) and there is little data to understand whether this gap has bridged in recent years. We conducted a global, country level bibliometric analysis of CVD publications with respect to trends in disease burden and county development indicators.Methods: A search filter with a precision and recall of 0.92 and 0.91 respectively was developed to extract cardiovascular publications from the Web of Science (WOS) for the years 2008-2017. Data for disease burden and country development indicators were extracted from the Global Burden of Disease and the World Bank database respectively.Results: Our search revealed 847,708 CVD publications for the period 2008-17, with a 43.4% increase over the decade. HICs contributed 81.1% of the global CVD research output and accounted for 8.1% and 8.5% of global CVD DALY losses deaths respectively. LI-LMICs contributed 2.8% of the total output and accounted for 59.5% and 57.1% global CVD DALY losses and death rates.Conclusions: A glaring disparity in research output and disease burden persists. While LI-LMICs contribute to the majority of DALYs and mortality from CVD globally, their contribution to research output remains the lowest. These data call on national health budgets and international funding support to allocate funds to strengthen research capacity and translational research to impact CVD burden in LI-LMICs