Landslide Hazard Mapping of Bagh District in Azad Kashmir

Landslide is a process which comprises creep movement, flow movement, rockfalls, snow avalanche and soil flow on a slope. Human beings in hilly regions face catastrophe in the form of land sliding specifically during rain time period. This paper will inspect the study of landslide hazard areas detection from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)’s Digital Elevation Model and moderate resolution Landsat-8 imagery over the district of Bagh in Azad Kashmir by applying hazard evaluation technique of average weighted overlay method with 6 factors in GIS environment. The outcome of this calculation is an area in the form of hazardous zones in eastern, north-eastern and south eastern of Bagh district in AJK. Landsat-8 imagery is considered effective for observing topographies over a large area while SRTM DEM (1arc second) with large global coverage provides elevation data with 30-meter resolution. GIS technique like assigning weights (weighted overlay method) on different parameters of the landslide can be helpful to policy makers and disaster management departments to overwhelm the serious situation during the hazard

Streptococcal pharyngitis: Delving deeper than the throat

Acute rhabdomyolysis and elevated transaminases during streptococcal pharyngitis are rare presentations. The proposed pathophysiological mechanisms include direct bacterial invasion and toxin generation. Physicians should be aware of the association between these infections and the above-mentioned complications to facilitate optimal treatment of these patients. We present the case of a 18-years-old gentleman with β-haemolytic streptococcal pharyngitis complicated by rhabdomyolysis and elevated liver function tests. Such high levels of creatine phosphokinase of 111856 IU/L and elevated liver function tests with aspartate aminotransferase (AST) of 1862 U/L and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) of 1003 U/L in streptococcal pharyngitis is rare to find in the literature. He was treated with aggressive intravenous hydration, antibiotics and hemodialysis. Key Words: Rhabdomyolysis, β-haemolytic Streptococci, Creatine phosphokinase, Liver function tests

Acute urinary retention: Should we call it a manifestation of appendicitis?

Acute urinary retention (AUR) is a fairly common presentation in the elderly; but interesting to be noted in a healthy young individual as a manifestation of acute appendicitis. We present a case of a 32-year gentleman with decreased urine output with mild tenderness at the supra-pubic region; which was later on, shifted to the right iliac fossa. Computed tomography of the abdomen showed acute appendicitis. Emergency physicians are challenged to recognize the uncommon presentation of acute appendicitis and need to be reminded of this common complaint as a rare presentation of it. This case also stresses on the repeated abdominal examinations to seek diagnostic clarity. Key Words: Appendicitis, Acute urinary retention, Repeat abdominal examination

Indo-US Strategic Partnership: Implications for Pakistan

In the scheme of American grand strategy for the ‘new world order’, India has emerged as the most powerful regional ally. The emerging “strategic partnership” between the US and India is based on a shared view for democracy and concerns about the threat of global terrorism as well as mutual unease considering the long-term implications of the rise of China in Asia and beyond. US and India have complementary economic and strategic security interests as the former desires to maintain her economic and military supremacy in the world. India on her part wants to develop security ties with America to facilitate her becoming dominant regional and global power in the foreseeable future. Shared perception about ‘terrorism’ has further cemented their relations where India promptly endorses US stance on “War on Terrorism” with a hope to turn US interests to its advantage by labeling freedom struggle in Kashmir as Pakistan sponsored insurgency. Reflections of converging interests include: US-India Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) initiative, signing of 123 Nuclear Agreement, missile defense, and ten-year defense framework agreement that calls for expanding bilateral security cooperation. Pakistan cannot afford to remain oblivious to these developments due to their security implications. Enhanced capacity building of Indian armed forces and nuclear collaborations may undermine the deterrent value of Pakistan's conventional and nuclear weapons. A combination of pragmatic foreign policy backed with credible conventional and nuclear deterrence could serve desired national security interests. While remaining strategically relevant to US, Islamabad will have to continue to cultivate good relationship with Beijing. On internal front, Pakistan must revive her economy and achieve more national cohesion so as to offset the negative effects of Indo-US strategic convergence

3D-TexSeg: Unsupervised Segmentation of 3D Texture using Mutual Transformer Learning

Analysis of the 3D Texture is indispensable for various tasks, such as retrieval, segmentation, classification, and inspection of sculptures, knitted fabrics, and biological tissues. A 3D texture is a locally repeated surface variation independent of the surface's overall shape and can be determined using the local neighborhood and its characteristics. Existing techniques typically employ computer vision techniques that analyze a 3D mesh globally, derive features, and then utilize the obtained features for retrieval or classification. Several traditional and learning-based methods exist in the literature, however, only a few are on 3D texture, and nothing yet, to the best of our knowledge, on the unsupervised schemes. This paper presents an original framework for the unsupervised segmentation of the 3D texture on the mesh manifold. We approach this problem as binary surface segmentation, partitioning the mesh surface into textured and non-textured regions without prior annotation. We devise a mutual transformer-based system comprising a label generator and a cleaner. The two models take geometric image representations of the surface mesh facets and label them as texture or non-texture across an iterative mutual learning scheme. Extensive experiments on three publicly available datasets with diverse texture patterns demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms standard and SOTA unsupervised techniques and competes reasonably with supervised methods.Comment: This paper is accepted in 3DV-202

Study the Effects of Antecedents of Employee Satisfaction in Banking Sector of Pakistan

The aim of this research is to analyze employee satisfaction level in the private banking sector of Pakistan. The job satisfaction has got remarkable attention in business research. It researches the major factors of worker satisfaction in Pakistan’s banking industry. Research study finds that there is a positive and significant link between employee satisfaction and in human recourse management (HRM) practices like team workplace, job independence, and actions of authority. Data is collected from the 180 top and middle level employees from top five banks of the industry in Islamabad, Pakistan. Data is collected with the questionnaire and interviews from the aforesaid entities. Results show that the employee satisfaction is the favorableness or un-favorableness with which workers view their performance. The individual's satisfaction and storage are crucial to the performance of company in the competitive industry and organization atmosphere today, and the banking sector enjoys no exemption to it. The commercial banking sectors have launched on different control techniques as alternative to market workers job satisfaction and thus worker storage. The paper mentioned factors that are point of high issue to workers regarding their satisfaction. The result of research shows that most of the workers working in private banking industry are pleased with their performance, control features and job roles

Drivers and Barriers of Sustainability Practices in Emerging and Developing Economies

This paper examines the drivers and barriers to adopt sustainability practices in Pakistani SMEs. Corporate sustainability has become important issue during the last few decades. Existing literature focus on large companies and thereby paid limited attention to SMEs. There is an increased understanding that SMEs should focus on sustainability practices to remain competitive. There is limited research that capture the extent of adoption of sustainability practices as well as its drivers and barriers. This paper fills the gap and uses institutional theory to explain the drivers and barriers of sustainability practices in SMEs of Pakistan. This qualitative research was conducted in Multan, Pakistan where interviewees from the managers of eight SMEs in the manufacturing sector were conducted. In addition to this questionnaire was sent to SMEs in order to capture the extent of the adoption of sustainability practices. The research findings show certain drivers: commitment by top management, competitor pressure, stakeholders’ pressure and barriers: lack of resources, lack of training and education and lack of awareness for the adoption of sustainability practices. This paper contributes to the sustainability literature in emerging and developing countries. Through an increased awareness of drivers and barriers, policy makers and practitioners may take necessary steps to improve sustainability practices in SME

Mechanical Properties of Amorphous Silica Filled RSS1

Rice husk contains about twenty percent silica contents. Uncontrolled burning of rice husk in the commercial incinerators leads to the crystals formation of silica which cannot be used as fillers in rubber composites. Also incomplete combustion leads to high quantity carbon black in the rice husk ash. In the current study, rice husk ash was prepared by the controlled combustion of dilute HCl treated rice husk .Controlled burning was carried out in the Rice Husk Combustor.  Rice husk ash contained high percentage of white amorphous silica. Amorphous silica was mixed in RSS1 in lab scale internal mixer in various percentages. Multifunctional additives were also added in a fixed ratio to facilitate mixing and curing of RSSI. Blends were converted into uniform thickness sheets, cut into dog bone and trouser shape and were subjected to mechanical testing. TIRAtest 2810 E6 universal testing machine was used for investigation of tear and tensile characteristics .Measurement of tensile features was done  by going through ASTM D412 and tear properties were investigated according to ASTM D624.Shore A type hardness meter was used to measure the hardness of Ribbed smoke sheet (RSSI) blend. It was observed that by adding amorphous silica up to 25 percent in RSSI, tensile properties and tear properties were enhanced .Only there was a decrease in tear properties after filler loading greater than 25%. Hardness was improved by addition of various percentages of amorphous silica

Atraumatic patellar prosthesis dislocation with patellar tendon injury following a total knee arthroplasty: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Total knee arthroplasty is a well-established procedure with gratifying results. There is no consensus in the literature whether to routinely resurface the patella while performing total knee arthroplasty or not. Although an extremely rare occurrence in clinical practice, patellar prosthesis dislocation is a possible complication resulting from total knee arthroplasty.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report a rare case of atraumatic spontaneous dislocation of patellar prosthesis in a 63-year-old Caucasian man of British origin with patellar tendon injury. The patient was treated successfully through a revision of the patellar component and tendon repair. In two years follow-up the patient is asymptomatic with no sign of loosening of his patellar prosthesis.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A thorough understanding of knee biomechanics is imperative in performing total knee arthroplasty in order to achieve a better functional outcome and to prevent early prosthetic failure.</p