Effect of Covid-19 Pandemic on Women Entrepreneurial Sustainability and Post-Pandemic Opportunities in SMEs of Punjab Pakistan

The coronavirus disease is a worldwide health disaster that has affected the entire business sector and has destroyed the world economy. Governments are trying to control this pandemic by applying important SOPs including lockdown, quarantine, minimizing movements, and social distancing to prevent human health. The government has taken some preventive measures and tries to control the immense spread of this virus. We argue that Women SMEs in Pakistan have faced several challenges during this pandemic. The objective of this research is to identify the effects of women entrepreneurship during COVID-19 and their sustainability in the Punjab province of Pakistan. This study used the qualitative research approach and conducted telephonic interviews with the selected business female owners of SMEs in Punjab Pakista

Frequency Of Burnout Among Healthcare Professionals In A Tertiary Care Hospital, After The COVID-19 Pandemic

Objective: In this study, we plan to estimate the frequency of burnout among healthcare providers in a specialized teaching Hospital. Methods: A questionnaire based on the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI) including personal, work and client subscale was administered to various healthcare workers including staff nurses, residents and consultants. Results: When the demographic data of 100 participants was analyzed it showed that there were 39 (39 %) males and 61(61 %) females. The mean age of participants was 32.2 years. Professional categories enrolled were 40 nurses, 32 consultants and 28 postgraduate trainees. The mean level of personal burnout was 47.15±15.73, 38.53 ± 17.64 and 41.06 ± 15.78 among nurses, postgraduate trainees and consultants respectively. The level of work-related burnout was 45.95 ± 19.01, 36.60 ± 14.93 and 36.75 ± 14.99 among nurses, postgraduate trainees and consultants respectively. Whereas client-related burnout was found to be 42.62 ± 16.63, 27.67 ± 12.22 and 30.71 ± 18.04 among nurses, postgraduate trainees and consultants respectively. Burnout severity was higher among nurses, and also more commonly seen among females as compared to males. Lastly, younger respondents were more burned out compared to older respondents. Conclusion: In conclusion, addressing burnout among healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, is crucial for the well-being of the healthcare force and the safety and quality of patient care. The study’s recommendation for personal and institutional interventions is an essential step in mitigating this issue and ensuring a healthier, more effective healthcare system.

Channel Impulse Response-based Physical Layer Authentication in a Diffusion-based Molecular Communication System

Consider impersonation attack by an active malicious nano node (Eve) on a diffusion based molecular communication (DbMC) system-Eve transmits during the idle slots to deceive the nano receiver (Bob) that she is indeed the legitimate nano transmitter (Alice). To this end, this work exploits the 3-dimensional (3D) channel impulse response (CIR) with L taps as device fingerprint for authentication of the nano transmitter during each slot. Specifically, Bob utilizes the Alice's CIR as ground truth to construct a binary hypothesis test to systematically accept/reject the data received in each slot. Simulation results highlight the great challenge posed by impersonation attack-i.e., it is not possible to simultaneously minimize the two error probabilities. In other words, one needs to tolerate on one error type in order to minimize the other error type

Preliminary structure-activity relationship studies on some novel s-substituted aliphatic analogues of 5-{1-[(4- chlorophenyl) sulfonyl]-3-piperidinyl}-1, 3, 4-oxadiazol-2-yl sulfide

Purpose: To study the structure-activity relationships of synthetic multifunctional sulfides through evaluation of lipoxygenase and anti-bacterial activities.Methods: S-substituted derivatives of the parent compound 5-(1-(4- chlorophenylsulfonyl) piperidin-3- yl)-1, 3, 4-oxadiazole-2-thiol were synthesized through reaction with different saturated and unsaturated alkyl halides in DMF medium, with NaH catalyst. Spectral characterization of each derivative was carried out with respect to IR, 1H - NMR, 13C - NMR and EI - MS. The lipoxygenase inhibitory and antibacterial activities of the derivatives were determined using standard procedures.Results: Compound 5e exhibited higher lipoxygenase inhibitory potential than the standard (Baicalein®), with % inhibition of 94.71 ± 0.45 and IC50 of 20.72 ± 0.34 μmoles/L. Compound 5b showed significant antibacterial potential against all the bacterial strains with % inhibition ranging from 62.04 ± 2.78, 69.49 ± 0.41, 63.38 ± 1.97 and 59.70 ± 3.70 to 78.32 ± 0.41, while MIC ranged from 8.18 ± 2.00, 10.60 ± 1.83, 10.84 ± 3.00, 9.81 ± 1.86 and 11.73 ± 5.00 μmoles/L for S. typhi, E. coli, P. aeruginosa, B. subtilis and S. aureus, respectively. Compounds 5d, 5e and 5g showed good antibacterial activity against S. typhi and B. subtilis bacterial strains.Conclusion: The results suggest that compound 5e bearing n-pentyl group is a potent lipoxygenase inhibitor, while compound 5b with n-propyl substitution is a strong antibacterial agent. In addition, compounds 5d, 5e and 5g bearing n-butyl, n-pentyl and n-octyl groups, respectively, are good antibacterial agents against S. typhi and B. subtilis.Keywords: Sulfides, Antibacterial activity, Lipoxygenase activity, Spectral analysi

The Interaction Effect of Financial Leverage on the Relationship Between Board Attributes and Firm Performance; Evidence of Non-financial Listed Companies of Pakistan

The eminence of corporate governance (CG) was grasped after the major blunders incorporate strategies and distinct corporate scandals around the world during the global financial crises. Advanced countries have passed numerous laws such as “Say on Pay” or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to shield the shareholder’s wealth. However, evolving countries are still flourishing to gain recognition in corporate governance (CG) effectiveness. The intention of the study is to probe the link between the CG (board size, outside directors) and firm performance (Tobin’s Q). Leverage has been used as an interaction term in the current study. The data had been collected from 130 non-financial firms from the year 2012 to 2015 and Multiple Regression Techniques will be used as the instruments for data analysis. The results indicate that the board size and Tobin’s Q have a significant association and outside directors’ insignificant association with Tobin’s Q. The interaction effect of leverage found a significant connotation between board size, outside directors, and Tobin’s Q

Malware detection : a framework for reverse engineered android applications through machine learning algorithms

Today, Android is one of the most used operating systems in smartphone technology. This is the main reason, Android has become the favorite target for hackers and attackers. Malicious codes are being embedded in Android applications in such a sophisticated manner that detecting and identifying an application as a malware has become the toughest job for security providers. In terms of ingenuity and cognition, Android malware has progressed to the point where they’re more impervious to conventional detection techniques. Approaches based on machine learning have emerged as a much more effective way to tackle the intricacy and originality of developing Android threats. They function by first identifying current patterns of malware activity and then using this information to distinguish between identified threats and unidentified threats with unknown behavior. This research paper uses Reverse Engineered Android applications’ features and Machine Learning algorithms to find vulnerabilities present in Smartphone applications. Our contribution is twofold. Firstly, we propose a model that incorporates more innovative static feature sets with the largest current datasets of malware samples than conventional methods. Secondly, we have used ensemble learning with machine learning algorithms such as AdaBoost, SVM, etc. to improve our model’s performance. Our experimental results and findings exhibit 96.24% accuracy to detect extracted malware from Android applications, with a 0.3 False Positive Rate (FPR). The proposed model incorporates ignored detrimental features such as permissions, intents, API calls, and so on, trained by feeding a solitary arbitrary feature, extracted by reverse engineering as an input to the machine

S-Alkylated/aralkylated 2-(1H-indol-3-yl-methyl)-1,3,4- oxadiazole-5-thiol derivatives. 2. Anti-bacterial, enzymeinhibitory and hemolytic activities

Purpose: To evaluate the antibacterial, enzyme-inhibitory and hemolytic activities of Salkylated/aralkylated 2-(1H-indol-3-ylmethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole-5-thiol  derivatives.Methods: Antibacterial activities of the compounds were evaluated using broth dilution method in 96 well plates. Enzyme inhibitory activities assays were investigated against α-glucosidase, butyrylcholinesterase (BchE) and lipoxygenase (LOX) using acarbose, eserine and baicalien as reference standards, respectively. A mixture of enzyme, test compound and the substrate was incubated and variation in absorbance noted before and after incubation. In tests for hemolytic activities, the compounds were incubated with red blood cells and variations in absorbance were used as indices their hemolytic activities.Results: The compounds were potent antibacterial agents. Five of them exhibited very good antibacterial potential similar to ciprofloxacin, and had minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) of at least 9.00 ± 4.12 μM against S. aureus, E.coli, and B. subtilis. One of the compounds had strong enzyme inhibitory potential against α-glucosidase, with IC50 of 17.11 ± 0.02 μg/mL which was better than that of standard acarbose (IC50 38.25 ± 0.12 μg/mL). Another compound had 1.5 % hemolytic activity. Conclusion: S-Alkylated/aralkylated 2-(1H-indol-3-ylmethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole-5-thiol deviratives with valuable antibacterial, anti-enzymatic and hemolytic activities have been successfully synthesized. These compounds may be useful in the development of pharmaceutical products.Keywords: 2-(1H-Indol-3-ylmethyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole-5-thiol derivatives, Enzyme inhibition, Antibacterial activity, Hemolytic activity, Molecular dockin

Nano-Elicitation as an Effective and Emerging Strategy for In Vitro Production of Industrially Important Flavonoids

Flavonoids represent a popular class of industrially important bioactive compounds. They possess valuable health-benefiting and disease preventing properties, and therefore they are an important component of the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetical and medicinal industries. Moreover, flavonoids possess significant antiallergic, antihepatotoxic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumor, antiviral, and antibacterial as well as cardio-protective activities. Due to these properties, there is a rise in global demand for flavonoids, forming a significant part of the world market. However, obtaining flavonoids directly from plants has some limitations, such as low quantity, poor extraction, over-exploitation, time consuming process and loss of flora. Henceforth, there is a shift towards the in vitro production of flavonoids using the plant tissue culture technique to achieve better yields in less time. In order to achieve the productivity of flavonoids at an industrially competitive level, elicitation is a useful tool. The elicitation of in vitro cultures induces stressful conditions to plants, activates the plant defense system and enhances the accumulation of secondary metabolites in higher quantities. In this regard, nanoparticles (NPs) have emerged as novel and effective elicitors for enhancing the in vitro production of industrially important flavonoids. Different classes of NPs, including metallic NPs (silver and copper), metallic oxide NPs (copper oxide, iron oxide, zinc oxide, silicon dioxide) and carbon nanotubes, are widely reported as nano-elicitors of flavonoids discussed herein. Lastly, the mechanisms of NPs as well as knowledge gaps in the area of the nano-elicitation of flavonoids have been highlighted in this review