Positioning English in a multilingual context of Pakistan: Orientations and practices of policy makers, print media writers, teachers, and learners

Positioning EnglisThere is a growing recognition that both explicit (explicit policy stance/statement about the role/functions of language/s) and conceptual/implicit (individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, myths, prejudices about language/s influencing their practices) aspects of language policy and planning are important processes because analyzing these policy aspects/processes generate holistic understanding of language policy and practice in specific contexts. However, few studies have investigated implicit policy perspective in relation to explicit language policy perspective in Pakistan. There is also a growing recognition about the role of mass media in language policy development. However, Pakistani print media writers’ perspective in relation to significant stakeholders’ (i.e., policy makers, teachers and students) views has not been yet explored. To fill the gap, this qualitative study, grounded on an ecological approach to LPP, aims to explore how English is ideologically constructed in relation to Urdu and local languages at macro level (the policy documents & print media texts). This study also explores how English is conceptualized at meso (teachers) and micro level (classroom, students), and the teachers’ and students’ subsequent language practices/choices. Data were collected from multiple sources including constitutional, and policy documents, Pakistani print media texts, teachers’ and students’ interviews, classroom and staff room observations. By using Ruíz’s (1984) framework of ‘language orientations’ as the analytical tool, this study found that unlike print media writers, teacher and student participants largely endorsed policy makers’ ideological construction of English as a resource. The teachers’ self-reported practices and this researcher’s classroom observations suggest that teachers largely maintained their ideological assumption (i.e., English as a pedagogical resource) in practice. However, student participants’ actual classroom practices suggest that they deviated from their institute’s and teacher’s English-only policy. Drawing on the present study findings, this study enriches Ruíz’s (1984) language orientations theoretical framework by suggesting that there should be an explicit acknowledgement of the dynamic nature and the context specificity of language orientations in the analytical framework. The study suggests that prior to choosing a given language (i.e., local language/Urdu) as a medium of instruction in Pakistan, a specific context needs to be analysed and accordingly, a language selected. Future research directions are also proposed

A Novel Airborne Self-organising Architecture for 5G+ Networks

Network Flying Platforms (NFPs) such as unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned balloons or drones flying at low/medium/high altitude can be employed to enhance network coverage and capacity by deploying a swarm of flying platforms that implement novel radio resource management techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel layered architecture where NFPs, of various types and flying at low/medium/high layers in a swarm of flying platforms, are considered as an integrated part of the future cellular networks to inject additional capacity and expand the coverage for exceptional scenarios (sports events, concerts, etc.) and hard-to-reach areas (rural or sparsely populated areas). Successful roll-out of the proposed architecture depends on several factors including, but are not limited to: network optimisation for NFP placement and association, safety operations of NFP for network/equipment security, and reliability for NFP transport and control/signaling mechanisms. In this work, we formulate the optimum placement of NFP at a Lower Layer (LL) by exploiting the airborne Self-organising Network (SON) features. Our initial simulations show the NFP-LL can serve more User Equipment (UE)s using this placement technique.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, conference paper in IEEE VTC-Fall 2017, in Proceedings IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall 2017), Toronto, Canada, Sep. 201

Spatial and Social Paradigms for Interference and Coverage Analysis in Underlay D2D Network

The homogeneous Poisson point process (PPP) is widely used to model spatial distribution of base stations and mobile terminals. The same process can be used to model underlay device-to-device (D2D) network, however, neglecting homophilic relation for D2D pairing presents underestimated system insights. In this paper, we model both spatial and social distributions of interfering D2D nodes as proximity based independently marked homogeneous Poisson point process. The proximity considers physical distance between D2D nodes whereas social relationship is modeled as Zipf based marks. We apply these two paradigms to analyze the effect of interference on coverage probability of distance-proportional power-controlled cellular user. Effectively, we apply two type of functional mappings (physical distance, social marks) to Laplace functional of PPP. The resulting coverage probability has no closed-form expression, however for a subset of social marks, the mark summation converges to digamma and polygamma functions. This subset constitutes the upper and lower bounds on coverage probability. We present numerical evaluation of these bounds on coverage probability by varying number of different parameters. The results show that by imparting simple power control on cellular user, ultra-dense underlay D2D network can be realized without compromising the coverage probability of cellular user.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Content rendering and interaction technologies for digital heritage systems

Existing digital heritage systems accommodate a huge amount of digital repository information; however their content rendering and interaction components generally lack the more interesting functionality that allows better interaction with heritage contents. Many digital heritage libraries are simply collections of 2D images with associated metadata and textual content, i.e. little more than museum catalogues presented online. However, over the last few years, largely as a result of EU framework projects, some 3D representation of digital heritage objects are beginning to appear in a digital library context. In the cultural heritage domain, where researchers and museum visitors like to observe cultural objects as closely as possible and to feel their existence and use in the past, giving the user only 2D images along with textual descriptions significantly limits interaction and hence understanding of their heritage. The availability of powerful content rendering technologies, such as 3D authoring tools to create 3D objects and heritage scenes, grid tools for rendering complex 3D scenes, gaming engines to display 3D interactively, and recent advances in motion capture technologies for embodied immersion, allow the development of unique solutions for enhancing user experience and interaction with digital heritage resources and objects giving a higher level of understanding and greater benefit to the community. This thesis describes DISPLAYS (Digital Library Services for Playing with Shared Heritage Resources), which is a novel conceptual framework where five unique services are proposed for digital content: creation, archival, exposition, presentation and interaction services. These services or tools are designed to allow the heritage community to create, interpret, use and explore digital heritage resources organised as an online exhibition (or virtual museum). This thesis presents innovative solutions for two of these services or tools: content creation where a cost effective render grid is proposed; and an interaction service, where a heritage scenario is presented online using a real-time motion capture and digital puppeteer solution for the user to explore through embodied immersive interaction their digital heritage

Factors affecting consumer’s healthy-package food consumption intention

Eager of convenience is the natural phenomena of all mankind. Similar pattern has been observed in food related decisions. Owing to the rising trend of individuals towards the consumption of packaged food the transition of disease pattern from acute to chronic has also been noticed. Psychologically, individuals’ intention is the foundation of their actual behavior. Individuals’ intention and actual behavior are correlated with each other, therefore, it is expected that positive strong intention direct towards actual purchase of any object. Furthermore, the research on consumers’ intention towards packaged food in developing and under developing countries are still far behind to figure out the solution on this issue. Therefore, this study has targeted Pakistani consumers to examine their intention towards healthy packaged food consumption. The objective of the study was accomplished with traffic lights symbols, health claims, user friendly food label, subjective norm, self-efficacy, attitude towards food label, five personality traits and intention to consume healthy packaged food. Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior was used as the underpinning theory. For data collection self-administered questionnaire was employed to target MBA students of fourteen universities. The sample size was 537 and technique was systematic random sampling. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the complete model. The traffic lights symbol was having ineffective for Pakistani consumers whereas health claims and user friendly food label indirectly influenced consumers’ intention with the mediation of attitude. In addition to, subjective norm and self-efficacy were having positive significant effect on intention to consume healthy packaged food. Moreover, conscientiousness and agreeableness were supported for moderation effect. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed. Finally, this research provides suggestions for future research

Status and Analysis of Formal and Actual Human Resource Management, Financial and Policy Autonomy of State-Owned Enterprises in Pakistan

This paper studies the formal and actual human resource management (HRM) autonomy, financial autonomy and policy autonomy of the state owned enterprises (SOEs) of Pakistan and points out the differences that exist between them. It also identifies behind the lack of autonomy of SOEs and proposes multiple recommendations though which this gap can be bridged. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected to carry out this study. Quantitative data was collected from 40 randomly selected SOEs using a close-ended questionnaire while 20 semi-structured interviews were carried out to collect qualitative data. Descriptive statistics was used to see the number of SOEs having different levels of HRM autonomy, financial autonomy and policy autonomy. It was found that a very less number of SOEs were completely autonomous in different aspects of HRM, financial management, policy formulation and its implementation. Excessive political intervention, dependence on government for resources, lack of power of Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and poor performance of SOEs along with numerous other reasons were identified as causes behind this lack of autonomy. Multiple recommendations have also been proposed to overcome this issue. Keywords: Autonomy, State Owned Enterprises, Human Resource Management Autonomy, Financial Autonomy, Policy Autonomy, Task Autonomy, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Companies Ordinance 1984, Public Sector Companies (Corporate Governance) Rules 2013. DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/10-1-01 Publication date: January 31st 202