Glyphosate: cancerous or not? Perspectives from both ends of the debate

Glyphosate is non-selective herbicide. Studies published in the last decade, point towards glyphosate toxicity. Shikimic acid pathway for the biosynthesis of folates and aromatic amino acids is inhibited by glyphosate. Glyphosate carcinogenicity is still considered to be a controversial issue. The World Health Organizations’ International Agency recently concluded that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Some researchers believed that glyphosate is not linked with carcinogenicity

Factors Responsible for Resistance in Okra against Aphid, Aphis Gossiypii Glover (Homoptera: Aphididae)

Aphids are herbivores that feed on plant’s sap and are widespread throughout the globe. To assess the factors affecting the infestation of Aphis gossypii (Glover) and to use antixenosis a trial was conducted using 5 okra genotypes (Sabz Pari, Advanta, Durga, Kaveri, and Shandar) during spring, 2017 at “Agriculture Research Institute” (ARI) Tarnab, under Random Complete Block Design (RCBD) in field and Completely Randomized Design (CRD) in lab with 3 and 8 replications, respectively. Weekly data gathering for mean percent infestation of A. gossypii on each genotype to note variation among genotypes. The aphid infestations (2.5 Aphid leaf-1) recorded on Shandar was higher than others and lowest (2.0 Aphids leaf-1) was recorded on Durga. Initially the infestation was lesser (0.5) but with time it reaches to peak (3.62) on 1st May and then gradually declined to least (2.0 aphid leaf-1) in the 10th week. A statistically significant negative relationship existed between aphid abundance and crop yield. In the antixenosis trial, the Durga variety showed significant antixenosis resistance towards aphids after 12, 24, and 48 hours. Furthermore, the maximum yield of Durga variety (8.3 Tons (t)/ha) and the least yield (5.2 tons/ha) Shandar was obtained. Relating to aphid infestation and yield, the Durga variety performed exceptionally well. It is concluded from the results that the varieties showing antixenosis resistance towards insects must be recommended to not only reduce insect attacks but also to enhance yield

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p<0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p<0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Investigating Factors Influencing the Continued Usage and Adoption of Smartwatches: : An Analysis Of Pakistani Users

An important field of research now is how smartwatches are being adopted and used in variouscultural situations. The adoption of smartwatches among Pakistani consumers is the subject ofthis study, with an emphasis on understanding the behavioral intents and usage patternsinfluenced by cultural customs and lifestyle preferences. Semi-structured interviews and qualitative questionnaires were employed in the study's qualitative research approach to extract insights from a diverse group of individuals. The research utilized qualitative methods, gathering in-depth and nuanced information from Pakistani users through semi-structured interviews and qualitative questionnaires. The data was subjected to thematic analysis, which revealed recurrent themes that provide insights into the variables impacting the adoption and sustained use ofsmartwatches.Five main themes emerged from the participants after thematic analysis. It was revealed that smartwatches were helpful in encouraging better lifestyles because they could beused as health-monitoring devices to actively control their fitness-impacting lifestyles. Users were able to smoothly incorporate technology into their fashion choices thanks to smartwatches, which wereseen as extensions of personal style. Participants praised the ease of managing tasks and notifications straight from the wrist, which facilitated effective time management. Withfeatureslike stresstracking and relaxation activities, smartwatches act as instruments for reducingstress.Participants praised smartwatches for helping them stay connected and organized whileretaining a professional demeanor. The findings were interpreted using a comprehensiveframework basedon the Affordance theory. The themes that were found reflected the perceived benefits that smartwatches are thought to provide, directing users towards activities based on thefunctionality they perceive. By illuminating the complex relationships between perceived affordances and behavioral intentions, this framework improved our knowledge of how cultural practices and lifestyle preferences interact with the adoption of technology. The results highlightthe mutually beneficial interaction between technology, culture, and personal goals whilehighlighting the roleof perceived affordances in influencing users' intents and actions. These observations offer invaluable advice for designers, academics, and stakeholders looking toimprove user experiences across various cultural contexts as smartwatches continue to reshape personal interactions with technology

A Novel Approach to Explore Edhi Foundation Knowledge for Ontology Construction

The worth of the Edhi Foundation (EF) system depends on how well its structural knowledge can be extracted by EF users and staff to perform daily activities. Ontology has emerged as a semantic tool to represent the knowledge of a particular domain and thus is a good choice for the semantic organization of EF data. However, building an ontology that suits the needs of EF users is a challenging task. This study presents a novel approach that uses the UML class diagram (UCD) to construct an ontology for the EF system. We propose UCD-to-ontology transformation rules, that is, the ontology model that is used for eliciting OWL ontology. We test our approach for the successful interpretation of UCD features to OWL ontology elements and find that the system performs well with an average precision of 97.80%

A Novel Method for Ranking a Website Rating via Search Engine Optimization

Everyone uses the internet and a search engine (SE) to find what they need, making SE indispensable. Search engines are used to find any sort of information, which is why most companies want to rank well in SE result pages in order to reach their ideal clients. Without a website, companies nowadays have little chance of competing in the industry. As a consequence, the companies have prioritized and funded efforts to improve their website SE rankings. There are a plethora of methods that may be used to optimize a website for search engines. These methods come under a heading, namely, search engine optimization (SEO) by webmasters. In this research, we propose a methodology that combines on-page and off-page SEO strategies to improve user search and website ranking over SE. The proposed method outperforms in terms of website ranking, whereby a website ranking is improved from fifth to second position on Google SE.  This significant shift illustrates that on and off page SEO can work together to boost a website visibility over SE result page

A Methodology for Engineering Domain Ontology using Entity Relationship Model

Ontology engineering is an important aspect of semantic web vision to attain the meaningful representation of data. Although various techniques exist for the creation of ontology, most of the methods involve the number of complex phases, scenario-dependent ontology development, and poor validation of ontology. This research work presents a lightweight approach to build domain ontology using Entity Relationship (ER) model. Firstly, a detailed analysis of intended domain is performed to develop the ER model. In the next phase, ER to ontology (EROnt) conversion rules are outlined, and finally the system prototype is developed to construct the ontology. The proposed approach investigates the domain of information technology curriculum for the successful interpretation of concepts, attributes, relationships of concepts and constraints among the concepts of the ontology. The experts’ evaluation of accurate identification of ontology vocabulary shows that the method performed well on curriculum data with 95.75% average precision and 90.75% average recal

User interest driven semantic query expansion for effective web search

Retrieving user-relevant content from a large volume of data available on the Web via an input query is a difficult task. A user query may not be able to specify user information needs due to the ambiguous and limited number of query terms. The semantic query expansion (QE) strategy offers a solution to this problem by expanding the query with additional terms, which are semantically similar to the original query. However, this strategy does not consider individual user interest in the generation of expansion terms. In this article, semantic QE is improved by combining the notion of ontology knowledge and user interest. The proposed semantic QE technique involves a computing domain of the input query via ontology, generates expansion terms from the user browsing history, and finally selects expansion terms that represent user preferences on the basis of the semantic similarity between expansion terms and query and user feedback. The experimental evaluation indicates that expanded queries produced by the proposed technique retrieve more personalized contents over Web search than initial user queries. The obtained results achieve 86.4% average precision, which proves a positive impact of incorporating user preferences in semantic QE

Problems and Prospects of Women Entrepreneurs: A case study of Quetta-Pakistan

Abstract Entrepreneurship is a rapidly rising concern of a modern competitive economy and its contribution in economy i