Effects of English Pop Music on Pakistani Teenagers: An Online Survey Study

This study investigates the effects of English pop music on the language of Pakistani youth. Online survey through questionnaire method has been employed to ascertain the myth and reality of the established notions. It questions the existing hypothesis and contention held by the researchers that teenagers, when interacted in the English language with their peers, often utter offensive slangs. This trend was considered to be more prevalent among male subjects as compared to female community in Pakistan. One of the key reasons noticed was an addiction to English pop music and hence was selected for the present study. Daily interactions of hundred teen males and females, addicted to English pop music, were observed randomly. All the respondents solved the questionnaire via Facebook IDs.  The collected results were analysed through social science software SPSS 20. Application of paired sample t-test revealed astonishingly contradictory results. The hypothesis cherished earlier proved that female teenagers use more abusive language and slangs than males. Keywords: English pop music, Abusive slangs, SPSS 20 Software, Online poll, t-Tes

Patient's Perception of Using Telemedicine During COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was driving the transformation of all aspects of people’s life including healthcare services to manage the spread of the virus. The direct health service delivery approach must be immediately limited and switched to telemedicine which is a service that utilizes information and communication technology to provide remote health services. The study aimed to describe the patient’s perception of using telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional design and 63 patients who experienced telemedicine service at a private hospital in Pekanbaru, Indonesia, were involved and chosen by purposive sampling technique in June 2021. Data related to the topic were taken by using an online self-administered questionnaire which proved valid and reliable. Descriptive analysis by using SPSS was performed after data about patients’ perception of using telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic was available. The study showed 60.3% of participants who used telemedicine service were young adults and university graduates (84%). They also had good knowledge about COVID-19 (84%) and 63.5% of participants had a positive perception of using telemedicine. It can be concluded that although telemedicine was an alternative health service method during the COVID- 19 pandemic, participants who used the service had a positive image of the experience. Keywords: telemedicine, patient perception, COVID-1

A review: urban heat island and its impact on building energy consumption

Civilization and urbanization are the two key demands of humans in the 20th century. Over the last few decades, a considerable number of the human population have moved to urban areas. This phenomenon has led to an explosion of the population in some of the major cities around the globe, including in Saudi Arabia. Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a climatic condition in which urban settlements experience increased air temperature than their neighboring rural counterparts. The UHI is attributed to the anthropogenic modification of land surfaces, population growth, urban development, and its consequential production of waste heat, which is endangering human health and the environment as well as the quality of living. Series of factors have been responsible for UHI, including building orientation, material albedo, land use, high-rise constructions, and human activities. The present study investigates the significance of the UHI features and their relation to building energy consumption. A list of contributing factors to UHI was identified and analyzed. The study suggests that there is a positive relationship between urban greening and urban material concerning energy consumption. Thus, this is a potential study gap that needs to be addressed to analyze the impact of UHI, particularly in the context of Saudi Arabia

Evaluation of sorbing amendments for in-situ remediation of contaminated sediments

textContaminated effluents reaching surface water bodies have led to accumulation of contaminants in sediments. The significance of contaminated sediments has increased as we have cleaned up effluents, often representing the primary human and ecological health risk remaining in surface waters. Contaminants such as polychlorinated-biphenyls (PCBs) and certain metals are bioaccumulative and reach high doses as they travel to higher trophic levels. Monitored natural attenuation and ex-situ treatment are often ineffective and uneconomical, and placing clean inert material over sediments as a cap is sometimes insufficient to adequately reduce risk so sorptive amendments are increasingly being considered to reduce the availability and mobility of contaminants. Laboratory sorption tests with different contaminants and sorbents were conducted to screen potential sorbent materials. Contaminants used in these screening studies included hydrophobic organic and selected inorganic contaminants common to sediments and sorbents included five types of clays and four types of carbon based sorbents. These screening studies were used as a basis to evaluate an in-situ adsorptive remedy for a particular site, the Manistique Harbor and River Superfund site in Michigan. Sorption capacity of five polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) on granular activated carbon (GAC) and organophilic clay (OMC) and the influence of natural organic matter (NOM) was evaluated. Results show that NOM fouling reduces performance of GAC by about half an order of magnitude while having minimal effect on OMC. Measured performance of the sorbents was used to evaluate in-situ treatment and capping remedial designs under conditions of weak (1 cm/yr) and rapid (1 cm/day) upwelling flow. Amended capping where the cap material is mixed throughout a thick cap layer provides the best performance, followed by capping in a thin layer followed by use of amendments as an in situ treatment. A Polanyi based adsorption prediction model was developed to predict GAC performance degradation by NOM that requires only micropore volume of GAC and physico-chemical properties of adsorbate for prediction. It accurately predicts adsorption even for a different type of GAC and different source of NOM. Results suggest that NOM-associated reduction of GAC micropore volume is a good indicator of the performance degradation associated with NOM.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

A Corpus-Based Transitivity Analysis of Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan

Transitivity, a linguistic concept, pertains to the grammatical property of a word in terms of the number of arguments it can take. It holds significance in linguistics by aiding in comprehending sentence structure and the interrelation between word categories. This study explores the utilization of transitivity in Khushwant Singh's inaugural novel. Employing Halliday's Systemic Functional Language (SFL) as the theoretical framework, a transitivity analysis of Train to Pakistan was conducted. The primary objective was identifying the principal transitivity elements in Khushwant Singh's novels. Quantitative analysis, facilitated by the UAM corpus tool, was employed to measure the percentage and frequency of processes. The study's findings indicate that Khushwant Singh's writing style leans towards heightened expressiveness of emotion in characters, with a notable inclination towards participant usage at 29.89% in the novel Train to Pakistan. Examining clause types reveals a prevalent use of material processes, constituting 14.99% of the novel. In conclusion, the study suggests that Khushwant Singh strategically emphasized transitivity processes in Train to Pakistan to illuminate the characters' experiences during the partition. This emphasis highlights the role of actions and relationships in shaping the narrative, offering insights into how historical events impact individuals in the author's stories

Potentials and challenges of bio-composites materials as engineering structures in ecological slope protection: a review

Ecological slope protection technology has gained popularity as a sustainable and eco-friendly approach for slope restoration and conservation. The integration of ecological considerations into slope protection techniques has resulted in more sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions. In order to advance the development of ecological self-cycling, this study conducts a comprehensive review of the latest advancements in ecological slope protection technology materials. A systematic literature search was conducted using four databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and Google Scholar) and based on the keywords: ecological slope protection; slope protection; bio-composite material; bio-material; eco-material; eco-friendly building material; mycelium based material; natural fiber composite and biochar. This article provides a detailed discussion of the fundamental types of ecological slope conservation and the properties of materials used in ecological slope protection technology. The usage of environmentally friendly innovative materials has overtaken traditional engineered structures as the primary mode of ecological slope protection innovation. In particular, this study focuses on the structural basis of ecological slope protection, conducting a comparative analysis of the properties of existing bio-composites and evaluating whether they could replace the base structure of ecological slope protection. The findings of this study will contribute to the development of more sustainable and effective ecological slope protection techniques, thereby promoting ecological conservation and restoration

Outcome of medical treatment of otogenic brain abcess without therapeutic drainage: A case of central vertigo

Otogenic brain abscess is a severe infection that must be treated as early as possible. Rare cases with a high mortality rate can be reduced by recognizing the red flags of a brain abscess, such as headaches, mental status changes, fever, and focal neurological deficits. Those could be supported by modern diagnostic management and adequate antibiotic therapy that was able to penetrate the central nervous system and abscesses. We report a case of a cerebellar abscess of the 49-year-old man with the chief complaint of vertigo. It was accompanied by chronic progressive headache, fever, bidirectional nystagmus, abnormal Romberg test, and abnormal cerebellar signs. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the head with contrast showed a right cerebellar abscess with an infectious source of otitis media and mastoiditis. The MRI evaluation showed improvement after admistered metronidazole 500 mg every 6 hours (week 22) and cefixime 200 mg every 12 hours (week 13). Long-term antibiotic treatment can be an alternative if surgery cannot be performed. However, surgery is still considered if there is no good clinical response during medical therapy

Exploring the Adaptive Responses of Plants to Abiotic Stresses Using Transcriptome Data

In recent decades, global climate change and heavy metal stress have severely affected plant growth and biomass, which has led to a serious threat to food safety and human health. Anthropogenic activities, the rapid pace of urbanization, and the use of modern agricultural technologies have further aggravated environmental conditions, resulting in limited crop growth and productivity. This review highlights the various adaptive transcriptomic responses of plants to tolerate detrimental environmental conditions, such as drought, salinity, and heavy metal contamination. These stresses hinder plant growth and development by disrupting their physiological and biochemical processes by inducing oxidative stress, nutritional imbalance, and osmotic disturbance, and by deteriorating their photosynthetic machinery. Plants have developed different strategies to safeguard themselves against the toxic effects of these environmental stresses. They stimulate their secondary messenger to activate cell signaling, and they trigger other numerous transcriptomic responses associated with plant defense mechanisms. Therefore, the recent advances in biological sciences, such as transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics, have assisted our understanding of the stress-tolerant strategies adopted by plants, which could be further utilized to breed tolerant species. This review summarizes the stress-tolerant strategies of crops by covering the role of transcriptional factors in plants

Exploring the Adaptive Responses of Plants to Abiotic Stresses Using Transcriptome Data

In recent decades, global climate change and heavy metal stress have severely affected plant growth and biomass, which has led to a serious threat to food safety and human health. Anthropogenic activities, the rapid pace of urbanization, and the use of modern agricultural technologies have further aggravated environmental conditions, resulting in limited crop growth and productivity. This review highlights the various adaptive transcriptomic responses of plants to tolerate detrimental environmental conditions, such as drought, salinity, and heavy metal contamination. These stresses hinder plant growth and development by disrupting their physiological and biochemical processes by inducing oxidative stress, nutritional imbalance, and osmotic disturbance, and by deteriorating their photosynthetic machinery. Plants have developed different strategies to safeguard themselves against the toxic effects of these environmental stresses. They stimulate their secondary messenger to activate cell signaling, and they trigger other numerous transcriptomic responses associated with plant defense mechanisms. Therefore, the recent advances in biological sciences, such as transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics, have assisted our understanding of the stress-tolerant strategies adopted by plants, which could be further utilized to breed tolerant species. This review summarizes the stress-tolerant strategies of crops by covering the role of transcriptional factors in plants