Lack of Environmental Sustainability in Youth Training at Higher Education

This paper aims to explore the need of the Pakistan public university students to be educated and trained to comprehend the significance of environmental safety. Higher education has the responsibility of nation lead, especially, in training the youth to combat with emerging challenges and issues. However, the solution for these challenges –-health diseases, environmental hazards, lack of equal opportunities and others—depend on the safety of environment because of its inevitable connection with everything that exists in this world. Various efforts to preserve the environment are being taken into consideration from every corner of the higher education institutes in the developed and the developing countries alike. The initiatives in Pakistan higher education context seem less with respect to the subsequent adverse affects of the destruction of environment on the growing population of the country. This study employed open-ended one-on-one interview from five higher education academic administrators (N=5) of Pakistan public universities. Thematic analysis produced two themes: a). importance of youth training for environmental sustainability and, b) destruction of ozone layer with six categories. The findings showed the need to revise the curriculum and educate the youth. It was also found that there is a need of combined concerted efforts from all concerned agencies, and ministries to ensure the safety of environment

Impact of Body Mass Index (BMI) on Echocardiography

Background: To determine the demographiccharacteristics of patients in various BMI groups and theimpact of individual BMI group on the utility of transthoracicechocardiography .Methods: This prospective observational study wasconducted at KRL Hospital, Islamabad from Dec 1, 2006 toApr 30, 2007. 224 patients, 52% males with mean age 51.4years (SD±17.23) referred for trans-thoracicechocardiography were studied. All patients had their BMIcalculated and test indication, details of echocardiographyfindings and final conclusion recorded.Results: Forty nine percent of the study population wasoverweight and obese with female predominance (59%).The normal and underweight people were significantlyyounger in age (p<0.001) and were mainly referred forassessment of heart murmur. The overweight and obesewere referred mainly for assessment of LV function andhad significantly high number of poor technical qualityecho images (p<0.001). In total 54% of the echocardiogramswere normal. Relatively more normal results wereobtained in overweight & obese (59%) as compared tonormal & underweight people (50%). Obesity was moreprevalent in female gender. Both the subgroups(normal/underweight & overweight/obese) used theechocardiography service equally.Conclusion: The high number of normalechocardiograms in overweight & obese people who weremainly referred for assessment of LV function appears tobe an inappropriate burden on echocardiography service.Assessment of heart murmur in normal and underweightpopulation is probably due to high prevalence ofrheumatic fever in our country

Allelopathy and Agricultural Sustainability: Implication in weed management and crop protection—an overview

Crop plants have defined roles in agricultural production and feeding the world. They are affected by several environmental and biological stresses, which range from soil salinity, drought, and climate change to exposure to diverse plant pathogens. These stresses pose risk to agricultural sustainability. To avoid the increasing biotic and abiotic pressure on crop plants, agrochemicals are extensively used in agriculture for attaining desirable yield and production of crops. However, the use of agrochemicals is also challenging the integrity of ecosystems. Thus, to maintain the integrity of ecosystem, sustainable measures for elevated crop production are required. Allelopathy, a process of chemical interactions between plants and other organisms, could be used in the management of several biotic and abiotic stresses if the basic mechanisms of the phenomena and plants with allelopathic potentials are known. Allelopathy has a promising future for its application in agriculture for natural weed management, improving soil health and suppressing plant diseases. The aim of this review is to discuss the importance of allelopathy in agriculture and its role in sustainability with a specific focus on weed management and crop protection

Electronic Debit Card Usage and their Impact on Profitability of Pakistan Banking Sector: ROA, Model

Advancements in ICT (Information and Communication Technology) have become the heart of banking sector and indeed banking sector is a root cause of success for each economy. Its importance is absolutely evidenced from the current recession in European banks crisis. The influences of innovation, globalization and competition in the banking sector by its providers to offer their services make essential the understanding of how various aspect of advancements in technology especially in sense of debit card, credit cards, mobile banking, internet banking, ATM and much more can affect the profitability in both form of assets and equity belongs to shareholders. In this study we have endeavored to develop an integrated mathematical model to testify the impact of debit card usage on ROA of Pakistan banking industry by implying the regression analysis. The results have enlightened that increased in debit card usage enhance the profitability of banking industry in form of ROA over the period of 2004 to 2013 quarterly. Hence, this study along with limitations can be recommended further in the process of transforming paper based transactions to electronic based to reduce the cost and enhance the customer satisfaction through high quality of service delivery. Keywords: Debit Card, ICT, ROA, Pakista

Is Internet Banking a determinant of Liquidity and Asset Quality? Empirical Evidence of Pakistan Banking Sector

In this paper, we investigate the effects of internet banking on the liquidity and asset quality of Pakistan banking sector overall, for the period of 2004 to 2013, quarterly. To evaluate the regression among the variables, SPSS has been used on the collected data for 46 operational banks in Pakistan. Though, results have enlightened that 1% increase in transaction via internet banking will lead toward more than 1% enhancement of liquidity and asset quality of banking sector in Pakistan. As liquidity and asset quality are components of CAMELS/ CAELS for measuring the performance of banking sector in Pakistan. Keywords: Internet Banking, Liquidity, Asset Quality, Pakistan Banking Secto

Analysis of the Substrate Effect on the Zero-Backward Scattering Condition of a Cu2O Nanoparticle under Non-Normal Illumination

The presence of a substrate is one of the most important limitations of the real application of the directional conditions. These conditions allow the control of the spatial distribution of light scattering of nanoparticles. While the zero-forward condition is quite sensitive to any change of the surrounding medium, like the substrate, the zero-backward scattering seems to be less sensitive and very stable under normal illumination. In this letter, the zero-backward scattering condition was investigated on a homogenous Cu2O spherical subwavelength particle, both theoretically and experimentally. In particular, the influence of the substrate and the impinging direction on the angular distribution of light scattering under this directional condition were studied. We observed that the zero-backward scattering condition was also sensitive to the presence of a substrate beneath when a non-normal illumination was considered. We believe that our finding is quite interesting from a practical point of view and for the real implementation of directional scattering in various applications like cloaking, light-emitting devices, photovoltaic devices, bio-sensing, and many more.M.H. thanks the National Natural Science Foundation of China for financial support (Project Nos. 294 U1532112, 11375198, 11574280). B.G.-C. wants to thank the financial support from the Agencia Estatal de Investigación and FEDER for the Project TEC2016-77242-C3-1-R AEI/FEDER, UE and Comunidad de Madrid (SINFOTON-CM) grant number P2013/MIT-2790

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT FOR SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS

The evidence shows that the education system is shambles in Pakistan and specifically of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). The schools critically require change. Transforming these schools into successful schools requires investigation of elements adding to viability. This investigation was carried in the Secondary Schools of Boys' situated in the province KP, Pakistan. The number of inhabitants consisting of guardians in the examination, having children’s in the pre-mentioned schools.  As a basic, the guardians having the responsibility to view in tutoring of their kids as more imperative partners. Examples contained purposively chosen 120 guardians (working in different fields). They were picked proportionately from 30 examined Secondary Schools of Boys' in which 26 are private and 4 open segment). The significant instrument for gathering of information are meetings with purposively chose guardians. These meetings were held with guardians in each inspected school having children’s in the tenth class. The different nature parameters of meeting were selected. The information consisting of subjective and quantitative treatment. The examination outcome uncovered various components in view of guardians' reactions and desires which, as per the investigation, could help enhance school adequac