Schools, air pollution, and active transportation: An exploratory spatial analysis of calgary, Canada

An exploratory spatial analysis investigates the location of schools in Calgary (Canada) in relation to air pollution and active transportation options. Air pollution exhibits marked spatial variation throughout the city, along with distinct spatial patterns in summer and winter; however, all school locations lie within low to moderate pollution levels. Conversely, the study shows that almost half of the schools lie in low walkability locations; likewise, transitability is low for 60% of schools, and only bikability is widespread, with 93% of schools in very bikable locations. School locations are subsequently categorized by pollution exposure and active transportation options. This analysis identifies and maps schools according to two levels of concern: schools in car-dependent locations and relatively high pollution; and schools in locations conducive of active transportation, yet exposed to relatively high pollution. The findings can be mapped and effectively communicated to the public, health practitioners, and school boards. The study contributes with an explicitly spatial approach to the intra-urban public health literature. Developed for a moderately polluted city, the methods can be extended to more severely polluted environments, to assist in developing spatial public health policies to improve respiratory outcomes, neurodevelopment, and metabolic and attention disorders in school-aged children

Impact of Online Consumer Reviews on Hotel Booking Intentions: The Case of Pakistan

This study is aimed at empirically investigating the influence of online consumer reviews such as realism, positive reviews, negative reviews and volume of online reviews on hotel booking intentions in Pakistan through mediational mechanism. Data was collected from 250 part-time business graduates of University of Punjab, the largest Public-Sector University of Provincial Capital of Pakistan. SPSS and AMOS were carried out to analyze the results and determine the impact of online reviews on hotel booking intentions. Results indicated that realism, the volume of reviews and positive reviews are the most influential dimensions of online consumer reviews. Moreover, trust act as an intervening variable between positive reviews, the volume of reviews, realism and hotel booking intentions. Empirical analysis also indicated that negative online reviews have no direct and indirect impact on hotel booking intentions of online customers. This study is an effort in proposing a combination of online consumer reviews dimensions in determining Hotel Booking Intentions

The Impact of High Quality Relationship on Innovative Work Behavior of Employees through Psychological Wellbeing: A Case of Pharmaceutical Sector in Pakistan

The impact of qualities and experiences of high quality relationship is of great value to the companies and field of human resource. Pakistan is facing critical situation regarding qualities and experiences of relationship of employees. Innovative work behavior of employees has not been studied in developing countries like Pakistan. In order to assist the business in pharmaceutical sector this study is aimed at investigating the effect of experiences and qualities of high quality relationship on innovative work behavior of employees. Pharmaceutical sector was considered for this study as this sector has significant contribution in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Pakistan. This research was quantitative in nature in which data was collected from managerial and non-managerial employees of pharmaceutical sector. Total 310 questionnaires were completely filled and entered in SPSS for analysis. Correlation analysis was performed in SPSS to show relationship between the variables. Model was tested through structural equation modeling in AMOS and goodness of fit indices were estimated using Hu and Bentler (2010) criteria and all the values were found to show good fit model. To test the mediation among variables through regression the SOBEL test was used as a supplemental test. All the direct and mediational hypotheses were accepted. The results reveal that the psychological wellbeing mediates the relationship between experiences, qualities of high quality relationship and innovative work behavior. Limitation of the study and managerial implications are also discussed along with guideline for future research

Frequency of translocation t(11;22)(q24;q12) using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in histologically and immunohistochemically diagnosed cases of ewing\u27s sarcoma

Introduction: Ewing sarcoma (ES) family of tumors is one of the most common groups of malignancies arising in children, adolescents, and young adults. Although characteristic histology with immunohistochemical expression of CD99 and FLI1 after exclusion of other small round blue cell tumors is considered diagnostic of ES, frequency of typical ES translocation, i.e., t(11;22)(q24;q12) is not known in our population. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to evaluate the frequency of this translocation in histologically and immunohistochemically diagnosed cases of ES along with its association with other pathological parameters.Methods: A total of 43 morphologically and immunohistochemically diagnosed cases of ES were included in the study. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) was performed on representative paraffin blocks to identify t(11;22)(q24;q12) translocation. Association with various clinicopathological characteristics was determined.Results: Mean age of the patients was 18.23±9.57 years. Bone was the most commonly involved site (22; 51.2%) followed by soft tissue (17; 39.5%) and parenchymal organs (4; 9.3%). A total of 88.4% of cases were found to be FISH-positive for t(11;22)(q24;q12). No significant association of translocation positive cases was noted with tumor size or disease-free survival. Similarly, no significant association of tumor size with disease-free survival was found.Conclusions: A significant proportion of cases of histologically diagnosed cases of ES exhibited characteristic t(11;22)(q24;q12). This signifies that histology along with immunohistochemistry is reliable for the diagnosis of this tumor; however, in difficult cases, FISH can be performed to detect characteristic translocation. Moreover, we did not find tumor size to be a significant prognostic indicator of survival in ES

TREADING TURBULENT WATERS: PAKISTAN’S READINESS TO THE LOOMING THREAT OF MARITIME TERRORISM

Houthis’ recent attacks on Merchant ships in the Red Sea have renewed focus on maritime terrorism. These attacks have pushed the global power centres to think seriously about this intensifying threat to international maritime trade and movement. South Asia, particularly India and Pakistan, have already faced the issue of marine terrorism, yet it has remained primarily a neglected field of enquiry, particularly in Pakistan. This paper aims to fill this void in the literature by critically analysing the threat of Maritime terrorism to Pakistan and how prepared it is to counter this problem. This paper attempts to dissect the threats that exist in the Arabian Sea and how maritime terrorism has the potential to push Pakistan and India into a new conflict, which may have grave consequences for the global community. The paper starts with an overview of maritime terrorism and how it has evolved over time and with technological advancements. This follows an analysis of marine terrorism incidents in India and Pakistan and how Pakistan has built up its organisational structure to cover the threats posed by it. It contends that Pakistan has a ready organisational structure; it requires improved inter-departmental coordination and more importantly, constitutional cover. In the end, the paper provides policy recommendations at the organisational, national and regional levels to address the issue of maritime terrorism.   Bibliography Entry Shahid, Mubashar Hassan and Rizwan Zeb. 2024. "Treading Turbulent Waters: Pakistan’s Readiness to the Looming Threat of Maritime Terrorism." Margalla Papers 28 (1): 211-225

The Effect of Job Crafting on Job Creativity through Job Engagement: A Case of Banking Sector of Vehari, Pakistan

This research was conducted to investigate the effect of job crafting upon job creativity and how job engagement intervenes this relationship. In this study, data were collected through self-administered questionnaires on LIKERT type scale from banking sector employees at district Vehari, Pakistan. In all, 300 survey questionnaires were circulated among which 271 were returned back yielding a useable response rate of 90%. The analysis of the data revealed that job crafting has significant positive impact on job creativity of employees working in banking sector of Vehari, Pakistan but this relationship is not only direct and job engagement plays the role of a mediator. Considering the importance of appreciations received by bankers management, policy makers should take necessary steps for improving the job engagement system and job crafting which will increase the job creativity of employees because their motivation to their profession will increase. Limitations and future guidelines have been discussed.

Breast Cancer Classification using Deep Learned Features Boosted with Handcrafted Features

Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death among women across the globe. It is difficult to treat if detected at advanced stages, however, early detection can significantly increase chances of survival and improves lives of millions of women. Given the widespread prevalence of breast cancer, it is of utmost importance for the research community to come up with the framework for early detection, classification and diagnosis. Artificial intelligence research community in coordination with medical practitioners are developing such frameworks to automate the task of detection. With the surge in research activities coupled with availability of large datasets and enhanced computational powers, it expected that AI framework results will help even more clinicians in making correct predictions. In this article, a novel framework for classification of breast cancer using mammograms is proposed. The proposed framework combines robust features extracted from novel Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) features with handcrafted features including HOG (Histogram of Oriented Gradients) and LBP (Local Binary Pattern). The obtained results on CBIS-DDSM dataset exceed state of the art