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In education, students experience different emotions, which affect their academic performance, engagement, and achievement. In the classroom, these emotional experiences of students are called academic emotions (Lei & Cui, 2016). This paper holds two-fold aims: to inquire about class-related emotions; and to find gender differences in the emotional experiences of undergraduates of a math course. The theoretical framework was grounded in control value theory. The purpose of the study was achieved by adopting a positivist paradigm, and applying a quantitative research method. The achievement emotions questionnaire (2000) was adapted as a data collection tool for class-related emotions. The data were collected from 162 undergraduates. The descriptive analysis was run for comparing group means on SPSS v. 23. The findings reported more positive emotional experiences: pride and enjoyment, and less negative emotional experiences: anxiety, anger, hopelessness, shame, and boredom in learning math in students. Moreover, interesting differences were found in class-related emotions between males and females. Future researchers direct focus on assessing test-related, learning-related, and teacher-related emotions of students learning science courses, and uncover underlying factors of negative emotions and environmental inciters of emotions from an interpretivist's perspective.

This research aims to determine the effectiveness of language learning strategies in writing descriptive text in an open area. Also, this research is subject to investigate the significant difference in students’ achievement before and after implementing learning strategies in writing using descriptive text in an open area. The researchers applied pre-experimental research with one group pre-test and post-test design and collected the data by giving a pre-test, treatment, and post-test. The research sample was a public senior high school in Tana Toraja regency, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, consisting of thirty students. The research findings showed that the tenth-grade senior high school students had fair to poor scores in a pre-test. After giving treatment, their writing skill in descriptive text significantly increased. The research results showed that implementing language learning strategies in writing descriptive text in an open area is effective. Also, the investigation showed a significant difference in students' achievement before and after being taught using language learning strategies in writing descriptive text in an open area. However, the teacher's responsibility as an instructor is to ensure students understand the topic in writing, particularly when creating descriptive language. To help students comprehend writing better, the teacher should provide some basic writing instruction. Writing descriptive language in an open space helps students learn writing more quickly and easily. To measure their significance for English language education innovation, open area learning methodologies should be investigated further to enhance other abilities like reading or speaking.

The malpractices and frauds are exponentially rising in developed and developing countries in entrepreneurs, banking as well as medium-sized companies. The criminals are utilizing the most modern information technology structures and such electronic media to accomplish their offense regarding fraud to cause wrongful loss and harm in the areas of white collar crimes, banking, business, and to individuals. The purpose of this research paper is to make these companies realize the essence of using the most recent, most reliable, and most authentic software and the need to make their networks more secure from outside attacks. The use of advanced features of tracking and hacking confidential information using information technology resources enables criminals to achieve their objectives. Basically, their modes of operand depend upon dishonesty and deception to complete the offense. In banking and white-collar frauds most of the time the employees of the concerned organizations are involved, who help and collaborate with external criminals by passing confidential information. Fraud is constituted by parody, distortion, misrepresentation, and twisting the fact/truth or concealment of real information detrimental to someone else. The legislation seems very naïve to punish a criminal who has committed fraud. There are several reasons for criminals to escape, for example, their identity most of the time remains hidden. Lack of evidence, feeble investigation, and naïve role of the prosecution in the court of law enables the criminals to go towards exoneration and release. The paper also presents an analysis of various types of fraud existing in society and how to combat them effectively. The main objective of fraudsters is to deprive people or entrepreneurs of their money, property, valuable documents, and private information. The authors of this paper express their deep concern about taking strict measures to safeguard the rights of bank customers by introducing the most recent software versions and the government must introduce stern and stringent legislation in this direction.

The malpractices and frauds are exponentially rising in developed and developing countries among entrepreneurs, banking as well as medium-sized companies. The criminals are utilizing the most modern information technology structures and such electronic media to accomplish their offense regarding fraud to cause wrongful loss and harm in the areas of white collar crimes, banking, business, and to individuals. The purpose of this research paper is to make these companies realize the essence of using the most recent, most reliable, and most authentic software and the need to make their networks more secure from outside attacks. The use of advanced features of tracking and hacking confidential information using information technology resources enables criminals to achieve their objectives. Basically, their modes of Operandi depend upon dishonesty and deception to complete the offense. In banking and white-collar frauds most of the time the employees of the concerned organizations are involved, who help and collaborate with external criminals by passing confidential information. Fraud is constituted by parody, distortion, misrepresentation, and twisting the fact/truth or concealment of real information detrimental to someone else. The legislation seems very naïve to punish a criminal who has committed fraud. There are several reasons for criminals to escape, for example, their identity most of the time remains hidden. Lack of evidence, feeble investigation, and naïve role of the prosecution in the court of law enable the criminals to go towards exoneration and release. The paper also presents an analysis of various types of fraud existing in society and how to combat them effectively. The main objective of fraudsters is to deprive people or entrepreneurs of their money, property, valuable documents, and private information. The authors of this paper express their deep concern about taking strict measures to safeguard the rights of bank customers by introducing the most recent software versions and the government must introduce stern and stringent legislation in this direction.

PurposeInternet technology in the classroom has become the primary demand of every student in this era. Moreover, information and communication technology aids students' learning involvement and progress by providing learning assistance by improved instructor, pupil and interactions with fellows. Using an asynchronous Web-based learning environment (WBLE) is one way to manage such assistance. This study aims to identify to what extent the asynchronous WBLE affects students' interest and motivation in learning mathematics at Shah Abdul Latif University (SALU), Khairpur.Design/methodology/approachThis research uses a survey research design under a quantitative approach. Therefore, data are collected through a questionnaire about students' motivation and interest in learning mathematics via asynchronous WBLE. Data are collected from the students of four departments (BEd, BSCS, BBA, BS Mathematics) of SALU, Khairpur. However, as the nature of this study is quantitative, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the results and discussion, and a one-way ANOVA test was used. The Cronbach alpha test was also used to assess the item's reliability, and the items were found to be acceptable.FindingsThe findings of this study discovered that asynchronous WBLE has a significant impact on students' intrinsic, extrinsic and interest levels. The results indicated that there is a positive impact based on the level of mean range of asynchronous WBLE on mathematics students.Research limitations/implicationsThe outcome of this study can be used as a guideline to understand and further plan or develop educational interventions based on the level of motivation and interest of mathematics students towards asynchronous WBLE in other contexts.Originality/valueThis is first study of its nature in the context of Khairpur district of Sindh that emphasizes on the motivation and interest of mathematics students toward asynchronous WBLE.

PurposeThe present study aims to examine the effects of work from home (WFH) on employees' performance and wellbeing during the second wave of pandemic and to find out the effects of institutional head's support as mediating variables and employees' self-efficacy as moderating variables on employees' performance and wellbeing during WFH.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative approach with causal comparative research design was adopted to collect the data from the respondents. The participants of the study were 586 teachers from public and private universities of Karachi, Pakistan, who were teaching from home during the second wave of pandemic, selected randomly from the population. An adopted questionnaire was used to collect data which consists of six parts.FindingsResults found the positive significant effects of WFH on teachers' social wellbeing, negative significant effects on teachers' performance, their physical and mental wellbeing. No significant effects of WFH were found on teachers' financial wellbeing. The study also found that head's support plays a partially mediating significant role in the relationship between WFH and job performance, and social wellbeing, while no mediation on physical, social and financial wellbeing was found. Moderating effects of teachers' self-efficacy exist between the relationship of WFH and teachers' job performance, mental wellbeing and social wellbeing, while no effects exist between the relationship of WFH and teachers' physical and financial wellbeing.Originality/valueThe new research model will contribute significantly to education practitioners' knowledge, especially the government of Pakistan, which needs to measure their work from home policy's effectiveness during the pandemic.

This research focuses on the increasing dependency on flipped classrooms with the merger of distance teaching and learning instead of face-to-face classrooms during the pandemic, which impacted student’s performance and learning post-pandemic. The primary purpose of this research study was to identify support, motivation, participation, collaboration, assessment, and feedback gained through the use of flipped classrooms with the merger of distance teaching instead of a physical classroom in the pandemic situations and the challenges faced by teachers in using flipped classroom. The main intention is to analyze flipped classroom effectiveness as an emerging concept in a pandemic situation. In this research, a methodology is recommended step by step below in the methodology section—a quantitative research method used to collect accurate and reliable results. A survey research method was used in this study. The populations of 90–73 respondents among higher secondary grade students of the public school in Sukkur were selected for data collection. For managing the data, SPSS statistics software was used. In inferential statistics, an independent-samples t-test was used for the analysis of data. The results were analyzed based on gender mean score. The significant findings from this study suggested that the flipped classroom is a practical learning approach that enhances student engagement, performance, and learning in the class. It is summed up that a large number of students favoured the flipped classroom approach over traditional pedagogy. This study will help to further integrate this approach into higher levels of institutions by keeping in mind its effectiveness and hindrances in Pakistan.

PurposeUnprecedented progressions in the sector of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have led to the trendsetting of Education 4.0 paradigms. A byproduct of breakthroughs in Education 4.0 is the “Cybergogy” paradigm that particularly stimulates learning and builds competencies in a virtual environment for the new era. Toward that, the objective of this review paper is to explore how cyber-physical learning is being adopted within cybergogy paradigms with its current state-of-the-art, traits, design models, applications and difficulties in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) around the globe.Design/methodology/approachA narrative review of literature has been conducted in which major electronic bibliographic databases are targeted for study selection. Seven themes have emerged from the literature search that descript the resourcefulness, inventiveness and challenges of cyber-technology in transferring learning and interaction in and outside HEI boundary walls.FindingsGrounded on the findings, it is valuable to mention that cybergogy media facilitates an array of options for collaboration, information gathering, intellectual discussions, the convenience of access, etc. among higher education learners. Consisting of interconnected technology, distinctive intricate digital systems and physical elements working together, the trend has implementation efforts of a smart learning institution for providing engaged learning and advanced skills training. However, there are certain implementation risks and consequences that must be considered thoughtfully.Practical implicationsThis review can be used as an effective guide in designing cyber-technology-mediated teaching instruction and strategies for supporting collaborations and inventive learning in higher academia. Future researchers interested in exploring cyber-physical blends and media usage in education will also be facilitated with this review.Originality/valueThis literature review is unique because it details significant practices of collaborative learning for the twenty-first century through cybergogy in Higher Education 4.0 that was not examined previously.

PurposeIn the current period quality assurance (QA) and technical vocational education and training (TVET) are known as the two comprehensively examined ideas in schooling, dependent on exceptional abilities in this modern era of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0. The incapability or need for QA of technology-oriented programs has been dissected by policy makers as a hindrance in accomplishing the TVET objectives. Consequently, the reason for this exploration paper was to contemplate over the impact and association of QA on TVET programs and level of preparedness of TVET teachers for the market of IR 4.0 in Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachIn this study a quantitative research method with survey-based research has been used whereas, two research questions and hypotheses were structured and explained to lead the study. The research sample was 475 TVET teachers having technical competence for Pakistan using the random sampling technique. The instrument was an adapted questionnaire using five Likert scales. Moreover, mean and standard deviation was utilized while one-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation was used to test the hypothesis.FindingsThe findings of this study uncovered that there is no significant impact of QA of TVET programs to fulfill the need of IR 4.0 in Pakistan. But there is strong and positive association between QA of TVET programs as per the demand of IR 4.0 and level of preparedness of teachers toward it. The study suggested that in order to meet the labor market's requirements according to IR 4.0, future employment demand could be met by assuring their TVET programmers' QA and putting them into practice in accordance with the indicators and the TVET framework suggested in literature and by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is widely accepted. The findings will also help to detect current trends in teaching, providing important insights in terms of QA and the focus of digitalization in TVET education.Practical implicationsThe implication of this study is that in order to influence TVET's technological development, employment and national development, policy makers, TVET principals, coordinators and teachers must work on important aspects of their access that are very important on inclusion, financing and quality – the assurance of standards, as it meets the needs of the country according to the IR 4.0 labor market.Originality/valueThis is one of the unique studies of its nature which has focused on the QA on TVET programs for the digital employment market of IR 4.0 in Pakistan and South Asia.

PurposeThe purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of Introduction of Smart Teaching and Learning (INSTAL) project on students' academic achievements in terms of students' science scores. Information and communication technologies (ICT)-based initiative was introduced in Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) schools at District Khairpur, Sindh, Pakistan. The aim of the study was to identify whether science test scores of students have been improved with the use of INSTAL facility at schools or remained the same at SEF-supported schools.Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative research approach has been used in the current study, and within it a quasi-experimental research design was employed. The descriptive (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test) were computed to find the pre- and post-difference in science scores of students. Both primary and secondary data were used. The primary data were gathered through questionnaire from 48 science teachers. Whereas, secondary data of 382 students who used ICT-based facility under INSATL project for two academic years were taken from quality assessment test (QAT) scores conducted by third party in SEF-assisted schools in District Khairpur.FindingsThe findings of the study revealed that the students' science scores improved by 10% in one year and 23% in two years with the use of ICT-based facilities under INSTAL project. Also, it can be concluded from the results that ICT has a positive as well as statistically significant impact on students' science learning by using INSTAL facility in schools. Results of the study show that students' level of interest toward learning science has been enhanced by the use of ICT.Practical implicationsAs the world is rapidly moving toward digitalization, the modes of teaching and learning have been changing. ICT plays a very significant role in the betterment of education. ICT helps to achieve socio-economic development of a country. However, Pakistan, being a developing country, has not that much resources, and ICT-based learning is not common in Pakistan. Therefore, it is very important to be aware people about the usage of technology in teaching and learning. The present study is an attempt to create such type of awareness. Moreover, the current study may be the first kind of study in the context of Pakistan which used TPACK as theoretical framework, and this study may contribute to the body of knowledge in the context of ICT.Originality/valueImplementing ICT-based software for teaching and learning in rural context of Pakistan was a challenging task, but it has brought positive results in terms of student's achievement. This may be the first study that has been conducted in the context of adopted schools of SEF.

PurposePandemics always have an impact on everything; for wildlife it is somehow positive and for human health and safety it is negative. But yet there is not any critique on its impact on the agriculture sector and farmer community. The world is not aware of the hazards which will be caused by crop loss. On the globe the largest country by population is China, where natives in China consume rice as staple food. In past few years, it was among the highest rice producing and consuming countries. Rice is planted in February to May mostly in China, and rice crop production is strongly dependent on preplanting activates which farmers are unable to perform because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread and the need to follow safety measures. So, the purpose of this documentary analysis is to indicate the impact of coronavirus disease on the agricultural sector in China specifically for rice production.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, a documentary analysis approach has been utilized. Moreover, due to the new and latest issue, not much research has been published in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the agriculture industry in China. Whereas, several online reports and expert reviews have been reviewed which have been published in online platforms and blogs websites. A total of 45 resources (journal articles, expert reviews) have been downloaded from reputed databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, out of which 31 of them were more relevant and related to the context of study.FindingsThe outcome based on this study has indicated that the rice cultivators and farmers are in uncertainty and not comfortable to work in their fields without proper safety measures due to the pandemic situation which will badly affect their lives and the economy of the country. Therefore, this study suggests that to overcome this issue, a proper safety framework is needed to be developed which can be implemented and which can facilitate the rice farming community.Practical implicationsAgriculture is important in so many ways including providing employment to the bulk of the population and providing the basic necessity of life and also contributing to the national economy. The outcome of this study will facilitate the agricultural scientist, economist and seasonal crop production stakeholders to indicate the most problematic domain and upcoming challenges faced by the rice farming community in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/valueThis is the first documentary analysis which is addressing the current issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the agriculture industry and specifically in the rice cultivation and producing community safety concerns and issues in China which is the first and most affected nation due to the coronavirus.

Reading is an essential skill for students to perform effectively and successfully in any academic setting. This skill is vital for foreign language learners as it provides chances for students to be exposed to English in input-poor settings. English as a foreign language students’ reading skills in diverse contexts remain substandard due to the lack of necessary input and efficient instructional methodologies. Thus, we review the literature on three common reading instructional approaches: the intensive reading (IR) approach, the extensive reading (ER) approach, and the blended IR and ER approach. This review summarizes the existing literature on IR, ER, and blended IR and ER and provides the critical appraisal of existing scholarly literature from several aspects, including reading approach, research design, research context, data analysis method, and the results of various studies of reading approaches. Finally, we present several future research directions in the field of reading research.

The enormous developments in technology have transformed the way we interact with the world around us. Among the extensive yet advanced technological interventions, one of the sophisticated expansions is the appearance of the Internet of Things, a tool for developing connections of physical objects to the virtual world using small-sized sensors and certain internet protocols to lessen human interventions. The domain of education has also adopted these technological services to move from traditional methods to sophisticated and advanced teaching and learning approaches to cope with learning needs and raise quality. This paper intends to conceptualize the impact of integrating IoT in higher education to increase students' academic performance in the engineering domain through the integration of smart laboratories. Several international studies were selected and thoroughly reviewed using the guidelines of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis to build sophisticated insights regarding the topic in terms of its conceptual as well as practical foundations. The key insights gathered through reviewed studies indicate that the Internet of things-based laboratories have significant advantages in uplifting students' academic performance through interaction, motivation, creativity, and practical learning. The integration of the Internet of things in higher educational institutes improves students' academic performance because it allows them to engage in authentic tasks and experience practical and active learning.

Pakistan being a young country is struggling to provide employment opportunities. However, entrepreneurship is a perceived strategy for reducing unemployment. The trend of entrepreneurship is also emerging among university students. Thus, the ratio of entrepreneurial intention and start-ups is also increasing among university students and graduates. Therefore, this study aims to examine the role of personality traits in the entrepreneurial intentions of young entrepreneurs. Considering this, qualitative methodology was employed with the case study as the research design. A single case of a university with three different departments was taken. In total, n = 9 entrepreneurs were purposely selected from business (n = 3), computer science (n = 3), and education (n = 3) departments. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis of their ventures and success stories. This study followed research ethics, including volunteer participation, confidentiality, and reciprocity. The collected data were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings reveal three main themes: the desire to be an entrepreneur, learning attitude, and personality traits are the leading factors in the entrepreneurial intentions of students and graduates. However, within these themes, the effect of personality traits (consistency and determination, discipline and locus of control, and risk-taking and tolerance) is found to lead to entrepreneurial intentions among young entrepreneurs. This study concludes that most entrepreneurs believe that the role of personality traits is evident in entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, the personality traits are further strengthened with entrepreneurial experience and help continue entrepreneurship.

Machine-based classification usually involves some computer programs, known as algorithms, developed using several mathematical formulations to accelerate the automated classification process. Along with the exponential increase in the size and computational complexity of the data today, such optimized, robust, agile and reliable computational algorithms are required which can efficiently carry out these conforming classification tasks. In this review paper, deterministic optimization techniques have been analysed that are efficiently employed for machine learning applications. In this review, systematic literature review approach has been adopted in which 200 research articles were downloaded from which 100 latest articles has been selected based on the most commonly employed neural networks’ techniques. Moreover, the reported neural networks techniques based on Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN), Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) Algorithm and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) with several hybridized classification algorithms based on optimization techniques have been indicated that are commonly used to optimize and benefit the classification process.

Purpose The purpose of the current study is to explore the influence of knowledge management (KM) in education management organizations (EMOs) Schools of Pakistan. Knowledge plays a pivotal role in the development of an organization due to sharing and managing of knowledge within an organization. In an era of competitiveness, KM has become a significant factor for the sustainable development of educational organizations. Knowledge and KM has become a key element in various fields of knowledge including health, technologies, engineering, social sciences, natural science, business and education. Organizations can adopt KM to improve effectiveness and gain advantage over other organizations. Also, it helps them to make well calculated decisions for the benefit of the organization. KM leads to increase in efficacy, more work, better performance, enhancing staff’s competency through quality decisions. Design/methodology/approach The research study is descriptive type research by nature, and a qualitative approach was adopted for gathering data and within it the desk review was conducted. The data was analyzed through content analysis techniques. The secondary data was collected in this study. Therefore, the unit of analysis includes the government documents, published research articles and international agencies reports, journal articles, websites, e-books and internet resources, conference papers, case studies and the statistics available on KM in development of organizations in educational settings. Findings The findings of the study show that through KM the EMOs school can perform better and give outstanding results in terms of student’s achievements. Further, organizations can develop a system which helps them to take timely decisions for enhancing the image of school among all stakeholders including parents, community, teachers and society. Practical implications The present study can benefit educational organizations, stakeholders, policymakers, provincial and federal governments and society. This will contribute to the new body of knowledge in the domain of education for knowledge creation and sharing. Originality/value This study is conducted in the context of EMOs schools. So, this may be the first research study in this area. In this connection, the study has originality in the context of KM in educational organization in Pakistan.

Purpose Oil and gas industries play a major role for the growth of world economy, and drilling operation is considered as most important and hazardous procedure at the same time for oil and gas drilling crew because of the lack of effectual and user-friendly safety and health teaching and learning aids with updated knowledge and training capability. According to the previous studies, there is an urgent industrial need for user interactive technological aid for enhancing the teaching and learning of oil and gas drilling crew and safety officials at onshore and offshore drilling domains to fulfill the requirements of fourth industrial and educational revolutions. Therefore, this proposed virtual reality (VR)-based Hazard Free Operation (HAZFO Expert 2.0) teaching and learning aid to reduce the workplace risk and hazards to enhance the vestibule and experiential learning performance of oil and gas drilling process at Pakistani drilling industries. Design/methodology/approach In this proposed product based study for interactive teaching and learning application for industry, sequential explanatory research design will be adopted to prevent the accidents according to the modern technologies in this era of IR 4.0. Whereas, for the development of VR-based educational aid for Pakistani oil and gas industries, Autodesk 3ds Max, visual studio and MySQL software’s will be used. Findings This new concept of VR-based interactive educational aid (HAZFO Expert 2.0) for accident prevention at oil and gas drilling industries will be based on potential hazards and their suitable controlling measures for onshore and offshore drilling sites. Practical implications VR-based interactive educational aid for oil and gas workforce will facilitate the health and safety professionals for the elimination of potential hazards associated with oil and gas drilling activities to the next level of identification of hazards which has been identified in HAZFO Expert 1.0 at onshore and offshore drilling sites. Originality/value This proposed VR-based interactive educational aid for safe drilling process will be the first visual teaching and e-learning technology which covers all onshore and offshore drilling operations in Pakistani oil and gas industries and provides effective hazard controlling strategies to overcome challenging industrial hazards.

Detection of abnormal behavior in surveillance videos is essential for public safety and monitoring. However, it needs constant human focus and attention for human-based surveillance systems, which is a challenging process. Therefore, automatic detection of such events is of great significance. Abnormal event detection is a challenging problem due to the scarceness of labelled data and the low probability of occurrence of such events. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-stream two-stage architecture to detect abnormal behavior in videos. Our contributions are three-fold: 1) In the first stage, we propose a 3D Convolutional Autoencoder (3DCAE) architecture for appearance and motion feature extraction from both video frame input and dynamic flow input streams of normal event training videos in an unsupervised manner. 2) We have used a multi-objective loss function for 3DCAE reconstruction which can focus more on foreground moving objects rather that the stationary background information. 3) In the second stage, the fused latent features from both video frames and dynamic flow inputs are grouped together into different clusters of normality. Then we eliminate the smaller or sparse clusters, which are supposed to contain noisy patterns in the training data, to represent stronger normality patterns. A Deep one-class Support Vector Data Description (SVDD) classifier is then trained on these 3D normality clusters to generate anomaly scores for each sample in 3D clusters to differentiate between normal and abnormal occurrences. Experimental results on three benchmarking datasets: UCSD Pedestrian, Shanghai Tech, and Avenue, show significant improvement in the performance compared to the state-of-the-art approaches.

Purpose This paper aims to address the relationship of teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) and their technology proficiency according to the International Society for Technology in Education Standards for Teachers (ISTE-ST) in public and private universities of Karachi, Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative approach with survey research design was used. In total, 520 teachers of public and private universities were selected on the basis of simple random sampling technique. Data was collected through questionnaire distribution. Findings Strong significant correlation was found between teacher’ TPACK and teachers’ technology proficiency, teachers’ ability to engage in professional development and teachers’ ability to promote digital citizenship and responsibilities in students. Originality/value TPACK and ISTE-ST are used for effective teaching. TPACK is used to measure teachers’ ability to integrate technology in their teaching, while ISTE-ST is used to measure the proficiency technology integration. This study is unique as it discusses the relationship of TPACK and ISTE-ST framework in term of teachers’ ability to promote digital citizenship and responsibilities in students and teachers’ ability to engage themselves in professional development program.

PurposeDrawing on knowledge-based view, social exchange theory and leader-member exchange, this study examines how exploitative leadership (EL) influences knowledge management (KM), its processes, and further investigates the moderating role of organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) on the relationship between EL and KM.Design/methodology/approachUsing a quantitative approach, survey data were collected from 356 faculty members in Iraqi public universities, and the direct and moderating relationships were assessed through Hierarchical regression by PROCESS v.3.3 macros in SPSS.FindingsThe study found a significant negative impact of EL on KM, including its processes, especially on knowledge utilisation. The assessment also revealed that OCB has a significant moderating impact on EL, particularly its effect on knowledge creation.Practical implicationsThe empirical insights of the study are valuable and precious for policymakers, managers and academics in education sectors of developing countries, to enrich their managerial and scientific performance through addressing EL behaviours while considering the moderating effect of OCB.Originality/valueThe relevance of the study stems from the scarcity of research on EL, while studies on the negative behaviours of leaders as a predictor of KM process failures are significantly limited. Additionally, studies on the moderating impact of OCB on the linkage between EL and KM processes remain limited. This study is one of the earliest studies that investigate these inter-relationships amongst EL, OCB and KM processes.

PurposeThe national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan has emphasized on improving content knowledge, reasoning abilities and problem-solving skills of students about thinking, communicating and solving mathematics (national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan, 2006). Whereas, there is a need to understand the point of view of teachers about the challenges they face in achieving the goals of national mathematics curriculum. This will help leading teacher training institutions to revisit their math teacher continuous professional development (CPD) programs and facilitate school leadership in improving the quality of math education in rural schools of the province. However, the purpose of this research study is to figure out the challenges that teachers are facing while achieving the goals of the national curriculum by teaching mathematics at the primary level in educational institutes of Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachIn this research study qualitative research approaches have been utilized, in which focus group discussions (FGDs) were used as data collection techniques. Furthermore, thematic analysis of the data led toward the development of four overarching themes such as teachers' knowledge about mathematics curriculum, challenges relating to mathematics content and pedagogy, difficulties in developing conceptual understanding and designing lesson plans to address students' diversity.FindingsThe overall findings of this research study suggested that the majority of teachers are facing difficulties in mathematics content teaching such as decimal fraction, unitary method, measurement principles, practical geometry and data handling. Moreover, teachers are also facing challenges and difficulties in developing hands-on and minds-on activities in the teaching of mathematical concepts to the students of primary level in educational institutes of Pakistan.Practical implicationsThis research study will facilitate the teachers and stakeholders to address the problematic issues in the domain of content delivery of mathematics. Whereas, this study recommends educating teachers about national mathematics curriculum and to develop a CPD framework for mathematics teachers for the enhancement of their pedagogical content knowledge. The study also recommends orientating school heads about the different aspects of math curriculum so that they can mentor math teachers in achieving math curriculum goals.Originality/valueThis is the first research study of its nature, which targets and highlights the teacher's perceptions toward the achieving the goals of national mathematics curriculum of Pakistan and addressing the pedagogical challenges faced in mathematics teachers. There is a dearth of studies in mathematics education in Sindh province. The issue is of immense importance, the findings will help teachers to improve mathematics instructions at primary level.

This research has been experimented on our previous literature review. Technological advancement has prevailed in the modern era from the 20th century. Artificial intelligence and virtual worlds have been created for rapid technological development. This paper is aimed at exploring the effect of virtual reality as a pedagogical tool for enhancing experiential learning among undergraduate students. Considering this, it was a mixed-methods study following the design of sequential exploratory–which includes qualitative followed by quantitative part. The targeted population was undergraduate students taking education programs from Public Sector Universities of Sindh. For the qualitative part, the sample of eight undergraduate students was interviewed for exploring their perceptions about virtual reality for enhancing experiential learning. The interviewed data were thematically analyzed, which revealed seven themes. For the quantitative part, emerged seven themes were used as constructs for developing the questionnaire. It was then used for quantitative data collection having excellent reliability. A sample of 80 students was taken, and data were collected by self-administration. The quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive as well as inferential statistics. Hence, the results found a statistically significant effect of virtual reality for enhancing experiential learning. However, user-friendliness ensures the applicability of virtual reality. Thus, it concluded that the implementation of virtual reality influences experiential learning enhancement. However, the implementation of virtual reality still depends upon the user-friendly nature of technology and virtual reality.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to find out the perception of prospective teachers and teacher educators regarding the curriculum ideologies. The student–teachers and teacher educators from a public university of Pakistan participated in the study.Design/methodology/approachThe current study has employed quantitative approach and used descriptive survey research design. The data was collected through the convenience sampling techniques. The data was collected through a questionnaire developed by Schiro in 2008. The questionnaire consisting of six parts and each part contains four statements on the curriculum ideologies of Scholar Academy, Social efficacy learner centered and social reconstruction ideology. The population of study comprised of 200 Prospective teachers of education department of a public sector University of Sindh, Pakistan. The data was collected by using 4-point Likert scale. The likert scale was ranging from the first priority to least priority. The reliability statistics was computed through Cronbach alpha α = 0.763. The data was analyzed through Statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 23.0 and mean and percentages were computed in this study.FindingsThe findings of the study revealed that most of the prospective teachers as well faculty members are following the scholar academy ideology to align with national goals of curriculum. The prospective teachers and faculty members believe that knowledge should be transferred from the institutions to the learners rather than the knowledge can be disseminated from the other sources as per the new dimensions for updated curriculum.Practical implicationsThe current study suggests curriculum ideology awareness programs should be given to prospective teachers and faculty members before their induction. The study also recommends that a survey study can be conducted from teachers and teacher educators before designing the national curriculum of Pakistan because majority of participants believed that knowledge can only be transferred from institutions.Originality/valueThis empirical study has given thoughtful insights to investigate the curriculum ideologies with new dimensions for those who are studying in teacher education courses and for their mentors. So, this study has contributed new knowledge in the context of Sindh, Pakistan specifically in the domain of curriculum ideologies and frameworks.

PurposeUnless the expertise of multiple teachers is availed, it is very unlikely for an individual leader to bring improvement especially at classroom level. This realization had led to the emergence of distributed leadership which is about engaging multiple individuals in leadership roles. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of school leadership in distributing leadership to teachers in a private secondary school in an urban context of Pakistan.Design/methodology/approachUsing qualitative approach and case study method, the research collects data from school leaders and teachers involved in leadership roles through interviews.FindingsIt was found that leadership facilitates distributed leadership through formulating a vision to develop teachers, enhancing the capacity of individuals involved in leadership roles, establishing a culture of trust, and creating opportunities for interaction and collaboration among teachers.Practical implicationsSchool leadership should distribute leadership to teachers in order to utilize the potential of multiple individuals which will ultimately lead to school improvement through initiatives from within. Educational reformers should incorporate the concept of distributed leadership in the professional development programmes designed for school leaders and teachers.Originality/valueThe study is first of its nature which reports on distributed leadership from a private sector school of Pakistan based on original data.

PurposeThe use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has become a major driving force in transforming education worldwide. Similarly, in the last ten years, the usage of ICTs and e-learning in Pakistan has increased. Whereas the latest educational policy of the Government of Pakistan has focused on using ICTs and e-learning in schools and universities. The national professional standards for teachers have also suggested teachers to integrate ICTs in their classrooms and develop e-learning platforms for teaching and learning processes. However, in this study the effectiveness of information and communication and e-learning technologies integration in teaching and learning has been assessed. The context selected for this research study is a public university of Sindh, Pakistan. The research gap, which has been founded through the extensive literature review, indicated that most of the students are not able to utilize ICTs effectively. The first objective of this study is to enable students to gain wider range of knowledge and access Internet for developing a global outlook. Moreover, the second objective of this study is to develop students' capabilities of processing information more effectively and efficiently for teaching and learning.Design/methodology/approachBy nature, this study is quantitative survey-based research study. For this purpose, data has been collected from students and teachers of English, Computer Science and Business Administration departments of targeted university, survey questionnaires have been adopted as a data collection tool. Whereas the random sampling technique is used for the collection of data by using Morgan table of sample size. Additionally, data has been collected from 100 participants, 80 of them were students and 20 were teachers, and data has been analyzed by using SPSS 22.0 software.FindingsThe findings of this study have indicated the student's level of interest toward the integration of ICTs and e-learning in science and social science courses. Similarly, the findings specify that through ICT and e-learning materials, students can learn more effectively, which can also facilitate teachers for their teaching process in this modern era of technology. Whereas the issue that has been specified through the findings is that the teachers are not encouraged by the management of the university to implement the ICT in their teaching and learning due to their concerns on the limited resources and lack of competencies.Practical implicationsFor the practical implication, the findings of this study will facilitate the teachers and learners for integrating the ICTs and e-learning in their course curriculums and interactive teaching practices as per modern era of technology. Also, this study will help the provincial leader and policymakers by addressing the teachers’ concern to encourage the integration of ICT tools and develop capabilities for interactive classrooms for effective teaching and learning.Originality/valueThis is the first study of its nature that has been conducted in the Pakistani public university in rural setting, and the finding of this study will facilitate and help the institutional and government stakeholders to where and how they can effectively integrate ICTs and e-learning in classrooms for interactive teaching and learning processes in the rural Sindh.

Purpose This era is the time for upskilling and producing workforce that is capable of effectively dealing with the day-by-day increasing demand of the industry. As the world is changing, its needs are changing in the same way and at the same speed. The world has become more digitized now. Moreover, we have a dramatic shift from Education 1.0 to Education 4.0 these days. The world now is practicing the internet of things, cloud storage, cyber-physical system and artificial intelligence. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors that affect the level of motivation toward the integration and implication of Industrial Revolution (IR) 4.0 in the education system of Pakistan by considering the Government policies. Design/methodology/approach For analyzing these factors, 150 research articles were sought out, out of which 84 were chosen for reviewing purpose based on the authentication of and relevance to this study by considering the Pakistani context. All the research articles have been selected from reputed indexed journals from databases (Scopus and Web of Science). Findings The findings of this review suggest that many factors affect the motivation toward integration and implementation of IR 4.0. These factors mainly include human factors, intrinsic values and influencing factors. Moreover, there is no such framework that provides the base to Education 4.0 in Pakistan because the things exist but are not systematic. Educators are motivated, but there are no resources; policies are there, but there is no practice or implementation. Pakistan is lacking in the latest trends related to Education 4.0 and even has no experience because people are used to doing things manually, but technology is the need of this era. Furthermore, the findings of this study will be useful for developing a systematic plan or a framework of the integration and implication of IR 4.0 that ultimately gives rise to Education 4.0 in the education system of Pakistan. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, no other study has been conducted on this topic in Pakistan. Also, there is a very little work done on this topic anywhere else in the world. The world is still exploring the IR 4.0, and our topic is solemnly related to these resolutions. Thus, there is a very little amount of literature related to this study.

Purpose In this advanced era of Industrial Revolution 4.0, as an element of cyber physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT) has been applied in many different industries; however, its adoption in the construction industry is still limited to a few applications. This study uncovers, identifies and assesses the challenges of adopting IOT in construction projects. The challenges have been identified through the briefed literature review and a survey instrument from construction industries in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the quantitative research approach has been used and data have been collected through a questionnaire survey for construction practitioners. Whereas, respondents to the questionnaire are practitioners from the Malaysian construction industry. The method of sampling implied is random sampling technique whereby the final sample size is 132 participants. Moreover, the gathered data has been analysed using univariate approach via standard deviation and average index in SPSS Software 22.0. Findings The results of this study indicated the most dominant challenges are lack of safety and security, lack of documented standards, lack of benefit awareness, improper introduction of IOT and lack of robustness in connectivity. This study also examined that the awareness of construction practitioners toward the understanding of IOT and its possibility to be applied and extended in construction projects and determined that construction practitioners are aware of IOT benefits to improve the efficiency of construction projects. Practical implications The study presents a better understanding of IOT in the construction industry and their potential challenges, which helps the construction policymakers to avoid encounters related to challenges and provide education-based campaigns to educate construction practitioners on the concept and importance of using IOT in the construction sector. Originality/value This is a unique study because of its nature in this advance era of industry 4.0. Furthermore, it is specifying the latest trend associated with IOT in the construction industry and addressing the challenges of implementation, which is crucial to exploit and take advantage of the full potential of IoT benefits.

Purpose Online learning is essential in today’s world. The COVID-19 has resulted in shutting down all the universities across the globe. Countries like India and Turkey (lower-income countries) are suffering a lot in giving the best classroom practice to their students through online mode. The entire way of teaching-learning has changed drastically, and it is a need of an hour. Research suggests that online learning has been shown to increase retention of information, and take less time, meaning the changes coronavirus have caused might be here to stay. It is therefore important to understand from student’s perspectives about learning online. The paper systematically surveys the perception of learning online for Indian and Turkan students. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this goal, 594 samples of students (from India and Turkey country) have been taken into considerations, and through statistical measures, the results were analyzed. The set of four research questions comprising of effect of study on COVID-19 pandemic, perception of learning online in COVID-19 pandemic, perception of different genders in learning online and perception of Indians over Turkan students in learning online were analyzed through statistical measures such as mean, standard deviation and so on. Findings The descriptive statistics of various responses across various dimensions (gender, country) reveals that there is no effect in learning online as compared to classroom-based teaching. On the other hand, there is no significant difference in gender and country in learning online. Originality/value Online learning has become crucial in higher education as far as pandemic situation is concerned. Many higher education institutions across different countries are suffering various problems from student point of view. Middle-income countries who are with limited assets and less advancements in higher education need to adhere to certain guidelines in online learning. This empirical study will help to understand the perception of students in online learning across India and Turkey.

Background Mass vaccination campaigns have significantly reduced the COVID-19 burden. However, vaccine hesitancy has posed significant global concerns. The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics that influence perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy, acceptability, hesitancy and decision making to take vaccine among general adult populations in a variety of socioeconomic and cultural contexts. Methods Using a snowball sampling approach, we conducted an online cross-sectional study in 20 countries across four continents from February to May 2021. Results A total of 10,477 participants were included in the analyses with a mean age of 36±14.3 years. The findings revealed the prevalence of perceptions towards COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness (78.8%), acceptance (81.8%), hesitancy (47.2%), and drivers of vaccination decision-making (convenience [73.3%], health providers’ advice [81.8%], and costs [57.0%]). The county-wise distribution included effectiveness (67.8–95.9%; 67.8% in Egypt to 95.9% in Malaysia), acceptance (64.7–96.0%; 64.7% in Australia to 96.0% in Malaysia), hesitancy (31.5–86.0%; 31.5% in Egypt to 86.0% in Vietnam), convenience (49.7–95.7%; 49.7% in Austria to 95.7% in Malaysia), advice (66.1–97.3%; 66.1% in Austria to 97.3% in Malaysia), and costs (16.0–91.3%; 16.0% in Vietnam to 91.3% in Malaysia). In multivariable regression analysis, several socio-demographic characteristics were identified as associated factors of outcome variables including, i) vaccine effectiveness: younger age, male, urban residence, higher education, and higher income; ii) acceptance: younger age, male, urban residence, higher education, married, and higher income; and iii) hesitancy: male, higher education, employed, unmarried, and lower income. Likewise, the factors associated with vaccination decision-making including i) convenience: younger age, urban residence, higher education, married, and lower income; ii) advice: younger age, urban residence, higher education, unemployed/student, married, and medium income; and iii) costs: younger age, higher education, unemployed/student, and lower income. Conclusions Most participants believed that vaccination would effectively control and prevent COVID-19, and they would take vaccinations upon availability. Determinant factors found in this study are critical and should be considered as essential elements in developing COVID-19 vaccination campaigns to boost vaccination uptake in the populations., Author summary This large-scale multi-country study explores perceived COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness, acceptability, and hesitancy rates and their related factors among the general adult populations from 20 countries. We found that a considerable proportion of the participants has an intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. However, more than half still expressed their hesitancy to receive the vaccines. Countries where the majority of respondents responded that they would accept COVID-19 vaccination included Malaysia (96.0%), Bangladesh (93.6%), and Iraq (91.8%). The majority of the participants from Vietnam (86.0%) and Turkey (74.7%) expressed hesitance to receive COVID-19 vaccine. Perceived vaccine effectiveness ranged from 67.8% in Egypt to 95.9% in Malaysia. The participants believed that convenience, health providers’ advice, and costs of vaccines are important for people to decide whether to accept COVID-19 vaccines. Country of residence, age, sex, level of education, area of residence, marital status, and family economic status were significantly associated with tendency to undergo COVID-19 vaccination and the perception that COVID-19 vaccine decision-making is influenced by convenience. The findings of this study provide useful guidance for tailored interventions to enhance the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccine. Promotional program addressed on detected socioeconomic factors is warranted.

Techno-pedagogical ability is a way and reasonable value education available to everyone. Indeed, although in the past it has been found that there are many benefits to using innovation in the classroom environment, there are still obstacles or experiences related to the use of innovation. )e literature review was utilized to gather and choose the papers for this research. )is article investigates the techno-pedagogical skills requirements of the science and art teachers of the Sukkur State Government College. In this paper, literature is collected from different real sites, such as Google, Google Scholar, Science Direct (Elsevier), Sage, Springer, Emerald, Taylor & Francis, and Eric databases. Ten themes emerged from the literature to analyze the techno-pedagogical skills of science and art educators and provide suggestions and solutions for improving educational institutions. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research papers are all included in this study. )is research also identified the knowledge gap and methodological and implication gap in this research article as per the need for 21st Century Digital Classrooms. )e results show that there is no significant difference in techno-pedagogical skills between science teachers and art teachers who use technology in teaching. )is is because of the epidemic. Talking about the current scourge, COVID-19 has transformed traditional courses into digitization through ICT integration. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is seen as a tool that can help schools adapt to the transition from industry to information. It is also considered as a tool to provide, support, and strengthen educational reforms in accordance with the educational needs of the information society.

Detection of violent human behavior is necessary for public safety and monitoring. However, it demands constant human observation and attention in human-based surveillance systems, which is a challenging task. Autonomous detection of violent human behavior is therefore essential for continuous uninterrupted video surveillance. In this paper, we propose a novel method for violence detection and localization in videos using the fusion of spatio-temporal features and attention model. The model consists of Fusion Convolutional Neural Network (Fusion-CNN), spatio-temporal attention modules and Bi-directional Convolutional LSTMs (BiConvLSTM). The Fusion-CNN learns both spatial and temporal features by combining multi-level inter-layer features from both RGB and Optical flow input frames. The spatial attention module is used to generate an importance mask to focus on the most important areas of the image frame. The temporal attention part, which is based on BiConvLSTM, identifies the most significant video frames which are related to violent activity. The proposed model can also localize and discriminate prominent regions in both spatial and temporal domains, given the weakly supervised training with only video-level classification labels. Experimental results evaluated on different publicly available benchmarking datasets show the superior performance of the proposed model in comparison with the existing methods. Our model achieves the improved accuracies (ACC) of 89.1%, 99.1% and 98.15% for RWF-2000, HockeyFight and Crowd-Violence datasets, respectively. For CCTV-FIGHTS dataset, we choose the mean average precision (mAp) performance metric and our model obtained 80.7% mAp.

This study intends to evaluate the effects of recruitment process on organizational performance along with mediating role of employee’s commitment in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan based on the social exchange theory. The study has collected data from 384 managerial staff of the manufacturing organizations in Hattar, Islamabad, and Lahore regions. The collected data was analyzed using multiple regressions to find results. The results of the study indicated that recruitment process has positive significant effects on the organizational performance and employee’s commitment in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. The results have also indicated that employee’s commitment mediated the relationship between recruitment process and organizational performance in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan. However, this study is only limited to the manufacturing sector of Pakistan in the context of social exchange theory. This study has clarified the effects of recruitment process on the organizational performance along with the mediating role of employee’s commitment in the defined context. Concisely, by integrating recruitment process, organizational performance, and employee’s commitment literature, the main contribution of this article is the analysis of job specification, job description, job evaluation in enhancing the organizational performance in the manufacturing sector of Pakistan.

The classroom environment influences the attitude of students. In a traditional classroom, students’ brain activity is minimal. Conversely, when students are taught through digital games, then they remain actively engaged in their learning. In this chapter, the effects of traditional and digital game-based teaching approaches on the mathematics problem-solving attitude of K-8 students were compared. By adopting a true experimental research design, a 1-month experiment was done with 64 students (32 experimental and 32 control), and effects were determined by taking a researcher–developed pre–post mathematics problem-solving attitude survey. For data analysis in SPSS 24, Cronbach’s alpha value, the Shapiro–Wilk test, descriptive statistics, and independent-sample t-test were done. The pre–post survey’s mean scores were as follows: presurvey experimental=2.36 and control=2.56 whereas postsurvey, experimental=3.22, and control=2.85. Furthermore, a statistically significant difference was noticed in postsurvey results at t(64) = 2.47, p = 0.01. In the postsurvey, the extent of the mean scores’ differences was large (eta squared = 0.09). By comparing the classroom environment of two teaching approaches (Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) and traditional), the study revealed that the DGBL learning environment is suitable for developing a mathematics problem-solving attitude substantially. Educators and school administrators may use these results to improve the mathematics classroom environment.

Drucker’s knowledge-worker productivity theory and knowledge-based view of the firm theory are widely employed in many disciplines but there is little application of these theories in knowledge-based innovation among academic researchers. Therefore, this study intends to evaluate the effects of the knowledge management process on knowledge-based innovation alongside with mediating role of Malaysian academic researchers’ productivity during the Pandemic of COVID-19. Using a random sampling technique, data was collected from 382 academic researchers. Questionnaires were self-administered and data was analyzed via Smart PLS-SEM. Knowledge management process and knowledge workers’ productivity have a positive and significant relationship with the knowledge-based innovation among academic researchers during the Pandemic of COVID-19. In addition, knowledge workers’ productivity mediates the relationship between the knowledge management process (knowledge creation, knowledge acquisition, knowledge sharing, and knowledge utilization) and knowledge-based innovation during the Pandemic of COVID-19. Results have also directed knowledge sharing as the key factor in knowledge-based innovation and a stimulating task for management discipline around the world during the Pandemic of COVID-19. This study provides interesting insights on Malaysian academic researchers’ productivity by evaluating the effects of knowledge creation, acquisition, sharing, and application on the knowledge-based innovation among academic researchers during the Pandemic of COVID-19. These useful insights would enable policymakers to develop more influential educational strategies. By assimilating the literature of defined variables, the main contribution of this study is the evaluation of knowledge creation, acquisition, sharing, and utilization into knowledge-based innovation alongside the mediating role of knowledge workers productivity in the higher education sector of Malaysia during the Pandemic of COVID-19.

The cases human trafficking and cruelty to minor and teen aged innocent girls increasing. Apart from thisyoung and middles aged women are abducted, kidnapped for fornication nefarious and illicit purpose.They are smuggled to other places inside the country and sometimes sold out abroad; where they aretortured and abused. A few minor girls are procured either by persuasion, influence, inducement or otherstimulus or incentive. When such offences are committed, they are carried out by a series illegal actionslike a chain of crimes. The person or persons collaborating with the main accused deliberately in commit-ting the offence are equally responsible for the consequences. In this paper, the analysis of offencesconnected with fornication, abduction and kidnapping and their effects will be highlighted at depth.Kidnapping and abduction are different offences, though in literature and legal language, sometimes usedas if they are similar offences. Several minor and teen aged girls have been abducted by criminal and aftercommitting rape and torture, murdered them. Abduction and kidnapping by means of motivation, byforce, deception or for the purpose of marriage (fake). There was a dispute regarding marriage betweenNoor Muqqadam and Zahir Jaffer (both family friends), but the girl was slaughtered after kidnapping andrape, at the residence of Zahir. Another minor School girl Zainab from Kasur was kidnapped, tortured,raped and murdered. The most serious aspect of the Kidnapping and Abduction is the sale of innocentminor and young teen aged girls to the “red light areas” for illicit purposes or selling abroad for slavery.There must be special task force to investigate such offences, who possess expertise in forensic and law.A case study consistent with research is presented in this paper, how a minor school girl was abducted,tortured and abused. The negative role of the investigating an officer and negligent approach of otherinstitutions spoils the case.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a byproduct of oxidative metabolism, acts as a signaling molecule, and can induce protein and DNA damage by oxidative stress. Ionic liquid-coated lignin stabilized silver nanoparticles (LAgNPs) have been used for the colorimetric detection of H2O2. Both ionic liquid and lignin moieties have a synergistic effect on the conductivity of silver nanoparticles to display intrinsic peroxidase-like activity with the enhanced potential to catalyze the oxidation of substrate 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB). LAgNPs have been synthesized by the green synthesis method and the prepared nanoparticles have been characterized by different techniques such as FTIR, EDX, TGA, SEM, and XRD. 1-H-3-methylimidazolium acetate (ionic liquid) was prepared and used for tuning of AgNPs. By using ionic liquid capped LAgNPs the colorimetric detection of H2O2 was done with the assistance of TMB solution and results were analyzed by UV–Vis spectrophotometer. Different parameters such as (amount of capping agent and TMB, pH, H2O2 concentration, and time) were optimized to get the best results of the proposed sensor. The H2O2 biosensor exhibited a linear response in the range of 1 × 10−9–3.6 × 10−7 M, with a detection limit of 1.379 × 10−8 M and a quantification limit of 4.59 × 10−8 M, and R2 of 0.999. The sensor gave a short response time of 5 min for colorimetric detection of H2O2 at pH 7.5 and room temperature. For the detection of hydrogen peroxide, the proposed sensor showed good sensitivity and selectivity and was successfully employed for the detection of H2O2 in the blood serum samples of hypertension patients.

Purpose This proposed research study aims to focus on the development and implementation of a new safety and health educational management information system (hazard-free production operation [HAZ-PRO]) based on effective hazards controlling factors and mitigating measures for safe onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling operation in Saudi Arabian, Malaysian and Pakistani industries. According to previous studies, there is a sheer industrial need of an effective management information system for decision-making to prevent life-threatening accidents at oil and gas production sites based on innovative hazard controlling strategies from different production origins. Similarly, that safety and health management information system will also enhance the decision-making skills of oil and gas production crew through effective accident prevention strategies. Design/methodology/approach In this study, 100 drilling crew are randomly selected for quantitative research phase. Similarly, 3 safety experts are purposively selected for qualitative research from each drilling domain from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan, whereas for the identification of hazard controlling measures, what-if analysis and thematic analysis approaches are adopted. Furthermore, the educational management information system (HAZ-PRO) for safety and health has been developed by using ADDIE Model based. Whereas, Visual Studio (2017) and MySQL software are used for the database and user interface development of the safety and health management information system for the safety and health of production crew. Findings This study proposes the research framework for the development and implementation of a new safety and health educational management information system (HAZ-PRO) based on identified effective hazard controls and mitigating measures in support of accident prevention and effective decision-making in hazardous events at Saudi Arabian and Pakistani onshore and offshore production domains. Whereas, this proposed safety and health management information system will assist and facilitate the safety professionals and production crew to prevent the injuries in hazardous work environments of onshore and offshore oil and gas industries according to international safety standards. Practical implications This safety and health management information system can be utilized by oil and gas industries (oil and gas production crew) in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Pakistan for accident prevention and suitable decision-making prior to the actual onshore and offshore operations. Also, the proposed system development framework will be useful as an effective source for the elimination of life-threatening drilling hazards associated with its activities in oil and gas industries. Similarly, the proposed framework can also be implemented in other oil and gas work-based accident prevention and effective decision-making designs. Originality/value This proposed safety and health management information system will be the first system for oil and gas production operation that covers all onshore and offshore operations for Saudi Arabian, Malaysian and Pakistani oil and gas industrial settings. Also, the system development methodology and design framework, which will be used, is novel and unique based on their characteristics and functionalities.

Purpose Annually, hundreds of drilling crew suffer from major injuries during performing oil and gas drilling operation because of the deficiency of an adequate hazard safety management system for real-time decision-making in hazardous conditions. According to previous studies, there is a sheer industrial need for an effective industrial safety management decision support system for accident prevention at oil and gas drilling sites at both drilling domains. Therefore, this paper aims to focus on the design and development of knowledge base decision support system (KBDSS) for the prevention of hazardous activities at Middle Eastern and South Asian origins’ onshore and offshore oil and gas industries during drilling operations. Design/methodology/approach In this study, data were gathered from safety and health professionals from targeted oil and gas industries in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan through quantitative and qualitative approaches. Based on identified data, KBDSSs (HAZFO Expert 1.0) were systematically developed and designed by adopting Database Development Life Cycle and Waterfall Software Development Life Cycle models. MySQL and Visual Studio 2015 software were used for developing and designing knowledge base and graphical user interface of the system. Findings KBDSS (HAZFO Expert 1.0) for accident prevention at onshore and offshore oil and gas drilling industries based on identified potential hazards and their suitable controlling measures aligned with international safety standards and regulations. HAZFO Expert 1.0 is a novel KBDSS that covers all onshore and offshore drilling operations with three and nine outputs, respectively, to achieve the current trend of Industry Revolution 4.0 and Industrial IoTs for workforce safety. Practical implications This industrial safety management system (HAZFO Expert 1.0) will be efficiently used for the identification and elimination of potential hazards associated with drilling activities at onshore and offshore drilling sites with an appropriate hazard controlling strategy. Originality/value Moreover, the developed KBDS system is unique in terms of its architecture and is dynamic in nature because it provides HAZFO Expert 1.0 data management and insertion application for authorized users. This is the first KBDSS which covers both drilling domains in Malaysian, Saudi Arabian and Pakistani industries.

Purpose: This study intends to assess the influence of self-efficacy on the ethical behavior of sales force along with the moderating effects of gender in the telecom sector at Pakistan. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study has collected data through self-administered questionnaire from the sales representatives in the telecom sector at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistic and stepwise regression. Findings: The results have shown that self-efficacy has positive significant effects while gender has positive but insignificant effects on the ethical behavior of sales force in the telecom sector of Pakistan. In addition, gender has moderating effects on the relationship of self-efficacy and the ethical behavior. Implications/Originality/Value: This study is addressing a need to examine the influence of self-efficacy on the ethical behavior of sales force in less developed and less educated areas of Pakistan, which is useful and helpful to explore understanding in the nature of defined variables in the eastern culture of Pakistan where male gender is more dominant.

Abnormal behavior detection in surveillance videos is necessary for public monitoring and safety. In human-based surveillance systems, it requires continuous human attention and observation, which is a difficult task. The autonomous detection of such events is of essential significance. However, due to the scarcity of labeled data and the low occurrence probability of these events, abnormal event detection is a challenging vision problem. In this paper, we introduce a novel two-stage architecture for detecting anomalous behavior in videos. In the first stage, we propose a 3D Convolutional Autoencoder (3D-CAE) architecture to extract spatio-temporal features from normal event training videos. In 3D-CAE, the encoder and decoder architectures are based on 3D convolutions, which can learn both appearance and the motion features effectively in an unsupervised manner. In the second stage, we group the 3D spatio-temporal features into different normality clusters, and then remove the sparse clusters to represent a stronger pattern of normality. From these clusters, one-class SVM classifier is used to distinguish between normal and abnormal events based on the normality scores. Experimental results on four different benchmark datasets show significant performance improvement compared to state-of-the-art approaches while providing results in real-time.

The core aim of this research study is to assess, analyze, and evaluate students’ perception of traditional and electronic assessment, which may affect their academic performance. This research study focuses on students’ perceptions about English as a second language in the context of formal assessment and electronic assessment, which is taken as a problem of this study, i.e., students’ perception of traditional and electronic assessment. This study uses a quantitative research approach, and the data have been obtained through a survey questionnaire from 100 students of SSC and HSC Part- I and II. The research results served descriptively and analytically regarding the two significant types of assessment applied in their classrooms; one is the traditional assessment, which is further subdivided into multiple-choice questions (including fill in the blanks and true and false statements), constructed response questions, and extended response questions. At the same time, the second form of assessment is the electronic assessment which is a computer-based assisted assessment. Electronic assessment is the modern technology that includes all forms of assessments, including collaborative approach-based assessment, interactive assessment, portfolios, and group projects. The result of this study reflects exciting findings. The results for the closed-ended questions (survey questionnaire) bend towards the null hypothesis (Ho), which states that there is no significant difference among students of GSL towards traditional and electronic assessment. However, the results of the two open-ended questions bend towards the alternative hypothesis (Hα), which states that there is a significant difference for the level of difference among students of GSL towards traditional and electronic assessment. Most importantly, teachers are obligated to select an assessment tool with careful consideration to ensure the appropriateness of each assessment tool for the learning objectives. Based on the research findings, some valuable recommendations for the policymakers, curriculum developers, students, and teachers are finally presented.

Since half of the century, technology has dominated the modern era. The rapid advancement of technology has reached generating artificial intelligence and artificial realities. So, virtual reality is an emerging technology and is applicable in education as well. Virtual reality is a computer-generated simulation, where people can interact within an artificial environment. Moreover, in an educational setting, such an environment provides students with a chance to get experiential learning. This paper has a systematic literature review on emerging technologies, such as virtual reality as a pedagogical tool for enhancing students’ experiential learning. This review aims to explore and understand the effect of virtual reality on students’ experiential learning by reviewing twenty-six selected articles. The selected studies have followed various methodologies and are from different contexts. This review study aims to present a systematic literature review for understanding and exploring the effect of virtual reality as a pedagogical tool for enhancing students’ experiential learning. Nine themes were identified, which are (a) virtual reality as pedagogical tool, (b) virtual reality as emerging educational technology tool, (c) virtual reality as digital transformation, (d) virtual reality as teaching-learning model, (e) virtual reality as architectural pedagogy, (f) virtual reality for communication skills, (g) virtual reality for reading and writing skills, (h) virtual reality for social learning, and (i) virtual reality for experiential learning. Thus, it is found that virtual reality is used as a pedagogical tool for various subject areas for encouraging involvement. It is helpful in medical, engineering, language, and social learning, as it provides a chance to get first-hand experience of the environment. Also, it helps learners to engage in a presented virtual environment and experience the sense of presence in it and enhances students’ experiential learning. Therefore, this review found virtual reality as an essential pedagogical tool for strengthening students’ experiential learning.