An autoregressive integrated moving average model for short-term prediction of hepatitis C virus seropositivity among male volunteer blood donors in Karachi, Pakistan

Aim: To identify the stochastic autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model for short term forecasting of hepatitis C virus (HCV) seropositivity among volunteer blood donors in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: Ninety-six months (1998-2005) data on HCV seropositive cases (1000(-1) x month(-1)) among male volunteer blood donors tested at four major blood banks in Karachi, Pakistan were subjected to ARIMA modeling. Subsequently, a fitted ARIMA model was used to forecast HCV seropositive donors for 91-96 mo to contrast with observed series of the same months. To assess the forecast accuracy, the mean absolute error rate (%) between the observed and predicted HCV seroprevalence was calculated. Finally, a fitted ARIMA model was used for short-term forecasts beyond the observed series. Results: The goodness-of-fit test of the optimum ARIMA (2,1,7) model showed non-significant autocorrelations in the residuals of the model. The forecasts by ARIMA for 91-96 mo closely followed the pattern of observed series for the same months, with mean monthly absolute forecast errors (%) over 6 mo of 6.5%. The short-term forecasts beyond the observed series adequately captured the pattern in the data and showed increasing tendency of HCV seropositivity with a mean +/- SD HCV seroprevalence (1000(-1) x month(-1)) of 24.3 +/- 1.4 over the forecast interval. Conclusion: To curtail HCV spread, public health authorities need to educate communities and health care providers about HCV transmission routes based on known HCV epidemiology in Pakistan and its neighboring countries. Future research may focus on factors associated with hyperendemic levels of HCV infection

Efficient Management of Power Generation and its Impact on Organizational Performance in Pakistan

Energy sector in Pakistan has passed through a number of phases since came into being in 1947. The electricity generating capacity has improved a lot but not according to the increasing demand of energy. The one of foremost problems of Pakistan’s energy sector is inefficient operation of power generating plants. This research work is a part of studies on efficient management of both private and public power generating companies in Pakistan. It observes the condition of efficient management including different variables connected with performance of the power generating companies. Efficiency is the comparison of what is actually produced with what can be achieved with the same consumption of resources. It is an important factor in determination of productivity and hence financial output of the company. Efficient management means, how efficiently every level of management of the organization is using the available resources to produce maximum output performance. The best way to do this is to empower skilled, qualified, and credentialed employees at all levels in the organizations. This research study provides the analysis and describes the impact of efficient management employee, methods, and strategy on the performance of power generating organizations in Pakistan. This study used a questionnaire comprising a five point Likert scale, to collect primary data from the employees of different public and private power generating organizations. There was government owned power sector only before 90s. Independent Power Producers (IPPs) started producing electricity in early 90s. As a result the load shedding duration in country had been reduced. The study considered several aspects including health safety and environment at work, company policy and strategic management decisions, competency of employees at all levels including their education, training, skills, motivation, appraisal and reward system, facilities including management information system of the organization. Primary data was collected from the employees of the power generating companies to find out the method of high performance through structured questionnaire and personal interviews, through emails and telephones. Results of study showed that four variables consisting company’s Policy, Eduction, Skills & Experience of employees, Employees competency and Employees motivation impact the performance of the power companies in Pakistan. Coercive strategy is not always impact the companye’s performance positively but working under perssure the coercive strategy may impacte the performance of the company positively but for longterm this strategy impact the performance negatively. Key Words: Efficiency, Efficient management, Education, Competency, Performanc

Lactation Responses toward Milk Indigenous Enzymes

Milk being a highly nutritious food in its natural form provides energy. There are various factors influencing the composition of milk: breed, stage of lactation, nutritional status, health, and milking intervals. A number of indigenous enzymes present in milk are being affected by stages of lactation period. Their concentration varies during early, mid and late lactation periods. This varied behavior ultimately affects the quality of dairy products. In this chapter, the level of milk enzymes: lipases and esterases, plasmin (PL), plasminogen (PLG) phosphatases (alkaline phosphatase ALP; acid phosphatase (ACP), lysozyme (LZ), lactoperoxidase (LP), xanthine oxidoreductase (XOR), and catalase (CAT) will be reviewed with respect to the stages of lactation periods

Job Satisfaction Through Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: A Case of University Teachers of Pakistan

Teachers’ job satisfaction leads to job continuity, which in turn affects teacher performance as well as the effectiveness of their institutions. The purpose of this study was to identify if there was a relationship between the Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) and Job Satisfaction (JS) of teachers since discretionary behaviours have a significant impact on performances, yet are not considered in evaluations. Descriptive correlational research was carried out using a multi-stage stratified random sampling technique, where participants came from Higher Education Commission (HEC) recognized public and private sector universities in Lahore, Pakistan. After data cleaning, statistical analyses were applied to the data from 232 questionnaires, using SPSS. Correlations between the factors of organizational citizenship behaviour (altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, and civil virtue) and job satisfaction were found to be moderately significantly positive. Job satisfaction through the factors of OCB was determined to be 21.3%, where only altruism and civil virtue were factors. Significant differences were revealed in the OCB and job satisfaction of university teachers in terms of gender, university type, job type, marital status, age groups, academic qualifications, teaching experiences, faculties, and universities. Results of the study provide implications for educational administrators, teachers, and policy makers for incorporating OCBs in their organizations and strengthening factors that contribute toward job satisfaction. La satisfaction professionnelle chez les enseignants entraine la continuité au travail, ce qui affecte le rendement des enseignants et l’efficacité de leurs établissements d’enseignement. L’objectif de cette étude était d’établir s’il existe un lien entre la citoyenneté organisationnelle (CO) et la satisfaction professionnelle (SF) des enseignants car, même si le comportement discrétionnaire a un impact significatif sur le rendement, les évaluations n’en tiennent pas compte. Une recherche descriptive corrélationnelle basée sur une méthodologie d’échantillonnage aléatoire stratifié à plusieurs degrés a impliqué des participants d’universités publiques et privées reconnues par le Conseil de l’enseignement supérieur à Lahore, au Pakistan. Suivant un nettoyage des données, nous avons soumis les données provenant de 232 questionnaires à des analyses statistiques avec le logiciel SPSS. Des corrélations légèrement positives se sont révélées entre les caractéristiques de la citoyenneté organisationnelle (altruisme, courtoisie, esprit sportif, conscience professionnelle, sens civique) et la satisfaction professionnelle. La satisfaction professionnelle, telle qu’évaluée par les caractéristiques de la CO, était de 21,3% et seulement l’altruisme et le sens civique y jouaient un rôle. Les résultats ont révélé des différences significatives quant à la CO et la satisfaction professionnelle chez les professeurs d’université en ce qui concerne les sexes, le type d’université, le type d’emploi, le statut civil, les groupes d’âge, les titres universitaires, l’expérience en enseignement, les facultés et les universités. Ces résultats ont des implications susceptibles d’intéresser les administrateurs, les enseignants et les décideurs par rapport à l’intégration de la CO au sein de leur établissement et au renforcement des facteurs qui contribuent à la satisfaction professionnelle.

Joint power and beamwidth optimization for full duplex millimeter wave indoor wireless systems

In this paper, a joint power and beam-level beamwidth control scheme is proposed for full duplex (FD) millimeter wave (mmWave) indoor wireless systems. Energy efficiency of the proposed scheme is investigated considering various system parameters, such as maximum transmit power level, level of self-interference cancellation and pilot transmission overhead. With this analysis for a realistic indoor wireless communication scenario, the feasibility of FD is studied for mmWave links, considering their specific propagation characteristics, namely, narrow transmission and reception beam-level beamwidths and high absorption losses, as well as massive bandwidth which is much larger than the existing sub 6 GHz bands. We evaluate the performance of the proposed FD mmWave system for three power budget schemes (low, moderate and high) in terms of average total energy efficiency. Our simulation results show that, for currently available state-of-the-art self-interference cancellation levels, FD mmWave with proposed joint power and beam-level beamwidth control outperforms the smart half duplex (HD) mmWave with joint transmission slot and beam-level beamwidth control by a factor of up to four times and improves FD mmWave with only power control by up to 33.92 %. If higher (close to ideal) selfinterference cancellation can be achieved, the net average total energy efficiency improvements over existing abovementioned schemes, are up to 4.8 times and 26.45 %, respectively. It is concluded that with the proposed joint power and beamwidth control, the current FD mmWave technology promises a good potential for indoor wireless networks

The higher education management in medical universities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The use of electronic technology plays a key role in the change in higher education management. This study aimed to assess the necessity of adaptation of electronic learning systems management during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The present study was mixed research. Its statistical population in the qualitative section included 50 experts in higher education management of medical universities. The statistical population in the quantitative section included 242 department heads of 65 medical universities selected according to Morgan's table. Purposeful sampling was used in the qualitative section and cluster random in the quantitative section. The interview was used in the qualitative section and a researcher-made questionnaire was used in the quantitative section. Qualitative data analysis was performed with MAXQDA 2019 software and quantitative data analysis was performed with SPSS software. Results: In the qualitative section, 9 general categories were obtained. In the quantitative section, the results of the one-sample t-test in the dimensions of development of technology and electronic service, expansion of virtual and integrated education, enhancing the quality of learning, expanding research, access to scientific resources, the efficiency of the educational system and optimization of capital and financial affairs of the current status of higher education management in medical universities were determined. Conclusion: For the development of e-learning at the university level during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to know the motivating factors and barriers well and use the gained experience to select appropriate strategies to accelerate the development process of e-learning

Safety assessment of street vended juices in Multan-Pakistan: A study on prevalence levels of trace elements

Street vended juices are most commonly available, accessible and economical nutritional food sources of poor slums in developing economies like Pakistan. Study was undertaken to elucidate impact of industrialization, agro chemicals induction in agronomic practices and food processing hygiene measurements on food chain heavy metals intoxication. If overlooked, certain quality risks associated either with fresh produce or processed commodity might initiate food intoxication.In order to understand gravity of the issue, street vended freshly drawn juices extracted from the food crops (orange, sugarcane, carrot and mango) cultivated in Southern Punjab peri-urban areas and country sides were evaluated for microelements and heavy metals load in summer and winter 2012. The safety study of juices depicted higher concentration of lead (Pb) and cadmium (Cd) breaching international safety limits implemented in the country. However some microelements (Fe, Zn, Mn) were found below the prescribed maximum tolerant limits. The study concluded prevalence of higher concentration of some toxic heavy metals as a serious breach of threshold levels potentially compromising consumer’s safety