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The educational system in Pakistan is mainly dependent on traditional teaching approaches, which are often regarded as ineffective and have a poor impact on the academic performance of students. We conducted this experimental study to examine the cooperative teaching impacts on the academic performance of students studying at the higher secondary school level in tehsil Faisalabad. Collaborative learning is a valuable instructional approach where students allocate tasks among themselves, assist each other (especially those who have difficulty), offer positive and negative feedback, and work together to achieve a collective outcome. Through such collaboration, students exhibit greater engagement and academic success. In this study, we compared students' academic performance by comparing the experimental and control group students. Control groups comprised of total 40 students. A single teacher conducted academic activities with them. Whereas in the experimental group, total 40 students were taught through the cooperative teaching method. The research design of the control was a pre-test and post-test, which is representative of true experimental design, and the same was applied to the experiment in this study. The results revealed that the students in the experimental group who were taught through a cooperative teaching approach academically performed better as compared to control. This implies that cooperative teaching technique had a positive influence on the students’ academic performance. This is concluded that the cooperative teaching technique was better as compared to the conventional method of teaching. Therefore, this cooperative method of teaching should be implemented for other subjects and at other school levels.

Background: Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder occurring in children. Each child on the spectrum has different behaviors. Objective: To identify different types of repetitive behaviors in patients with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: This study was carried out at the Children's hospital, The Institute of Child Health Centre and Rising Sun Institute DHA Lahore, Department of Developmental Pediatrics, Lahore. Purposive sampling was used to collect data through three months’ period. It was a cross-sectional study including 32 children with autism spectrum disorder between the age of 3 and 15 years. The repetitive behavior scale was developed to identify different forms of repetitive. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 and data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and were presented in the form of tables. Results: Six forms of repetitive behaviors including stereotyped, self-injurious, compulsive, ritualistic, sameness and restricted behaviors and were evaluated in 32 children. Restricted behavior was most commonly present in a severe form in 17 (15.1%) children followed by sameness behavior in 15 (46.9%) children, and stereotyped behavior in 12 (37.5%) children, while compulsive behavior and ritualistic behavior were less commonly seen in 8 (25%) and 7 (21.9%) children, respectively and self-injurious behavior was seen rarely in only 3 (9.4%) children. Conclusion: Repetitive behaviors were seen in all children with autism spectrum disorder however the most prevalent forms are restricted, sameness and stereotyped behaviors. Early detection of behavioral abnormalities can aid in the early detection and treatment of autism spectrum disorder.

Brassica napus L. is important oilseed crop, having higher oil contents (40%) with low contents of glucosinolate and erucic acid, make it perfect for edible purpose. Ten Brassica napus L. genotypes were crossed in line × tester mating design. Seven high yielding female lines were crossed with 3 low yielding testers. The 21 F1’s along with parents were evaluated in Randomized Complete Block Design with three repetitions in the field of Department of Plant Breeding and genetics, UAF. Out of thirteen attributes, eleven attributes (plant height, days taken to flower initiation, days taken to 50% flower initiation, number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, number of siliques per plant, siliqua length, seed yield per plant, 100-seed weight, seed yield per plot and oil content) showed significant results for all genotypes under study while two attributes (seed per siliqua and protein content) were non-significant. The parent ZN-M-9 was chosen as excellent overall combiner for plant height, days taken to flower initiation, days to 50% flowering and number of siliques plant-1 and ZM-M-6 and Rainbow identified as the excellent general combiner for the seed yield plant-1 and seed yield per plot, respectively. The cross ZN-M-9 × ZMR-3 & DGL × ZN-R-1 identified as good specific combiners for seed yield plant-1 and seed yield plot-1, respectively. The cross ZM-M-6 × ZMR-3 was selected as best for days taken to first flower beginning, days taken to 50% flowering, and oil content on the basis of better parent heterosis. The genetic information obtained in this research will be helpful for the breeder during their future breeding program

Lung ultrasound (LUS) has sparked significant interest during COVID-19. LUS is based on the detection and analysis of imaging patterns. Vertical artifacts and consolidations are some of the recognized patterns in COVID-19. However, the interrater reliability (IRR) of these findings has not been yet thoroughly investigated. The goal of this study is to assess IRR in LUS COVID-19 data and determine how many LUS videos and operators are required to obtain a reliable result.A total of 1035 LUS videos from 59 COVID-19 patients were included. Videos were randomly selected from a dataset of 1807 videos and scored by six human operators (HOs). The videos were also analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. Fleiss' kappa coefficient results are presented, evaluated at both the video and prognostic levels.Findings show a stable agreement when evaluating a minimum of 500 videos. The statistical analysis illustrates that, at a video level, a Fleiss' kappa coefficient of 0.464 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.455-0.473) and 0.404 (95% CI = 0.396-0.412) is obtained for pairs of HOs and for AI versus HOs, respectively. At prognostic level, a Fleiss' kappa coefficient of 0.505 (95% CI = 0.448-0.562) and 0.506 (95% CI = 0.458-0.555) is obtained for pairs of HOs and for AI versus HOs, respectively.To examine IRR and obtain a reliable evaluation, a minimum of 500 videos are recommended. Moreover, the employed AI algorithms achieve results that are comparable with HOs. This research further provides a methodology that can be useful to benchmark future LUS studies.

Abiotic stress is one of the primary causes of crop yield loss worldwide; it contributes to a nearly 50% reduction in crop production. Anti-oxidants are produced in plants to scavenge ROS that causes cellular damage during abiotic stress. The plant stress response is a complex mechanism that involves protein initiation pathways, abscisic acid signaling, transcriptional and post-transcriptional modifications. Abiotic stress-inducible genes are divided into two groups based on protein products, one is for signal transduction and other is for expressing resistance. Transcriptional factors bind to the promoter of the target gene at specific DNA sequences thus regulating the gene expression, so different kinds of transcriptional factors known as regulons are involved in regulation of genes during drought, salinity and cold stress.

Abiotic stress is one of the primary causes of crop yield loss worldwide; it contributes to a nearly 50% reduction in crop production. Anti-oxidants are produced in plants to scavenge ROS that causes cellular damage during abiotic stress. The plant stress response is a complex mechanism that involves protein initiation pathways, abscisic acid signaling, transcriptional and post-transcriptional modifications. Abiotic stress-inducible genes are divided into two groups based on protein products, one is for signal transduction and other is for expressing resistance. Transcriptional factors bind to the promoter of the target gene at specific DNA sequences thus regulating the gene expression, so different kinds of transcriptional factors known as regulons are involved in regulation of genes during drought, salinity and cold stress.

Inefficient job performance is associated with various environmental factors. These factors are also reason to low satisfaction levels which leads to poor performance in the workers. The working environment factors can be a reason for the anxiety in employees and poor performance in the workers. A cross-sectional study was conducted and 200 nurses were selected from Services Hospital Lahore. Demographic characteristics and different working variables such as environmental hazards, workplace layout, infection control measures, and proper availability of resources were considered. Pearson correlation and regression were carried out for the environmental factors and job performance and a strong positive relationship with the p-value

Classroom is a place where student learn numerous skills, knowledge, generate new thoughts and ideas as well as increase their abilities towards affective learning. However, it is noticed school systems are running with dark, congested classrooms that affects student’s learning. The present cross sectional study was designed to assess effect of abiotic component of classroom environment on the students learning. 175 students of Lahore school of nursing at The University of Lahore were considered. Convenience representative method was used. Sample size was 122 according to Slovins’ formula. 41% of the respondents were agreed that proper lightning and temperature of class room plays an essential role in the learning of students and they learned in more suitable way and can enhance their comprehension field. It was noticed that student’s performance and learning enhanced by properly arranging class room environment especially abiotic factors such as light, temperature and air conditions. It was concluded that students are worth of any organization and for proper utilization of their skills it is very important to focus on class room environment

The goal of this study is to test the applicability of a generative adversarial network (GAN) to solve the class unbalancing problem in lung ultrasound (LUS) data. We introduce a supervised autoencoder with conditional latent space. During training, the generator utilizes the weights of the decoder and conditional latent space to generate synthetic LUS images, whereas the discriminator utilizes the weights of the encoder together with the class labels, which also allows classifying each synthetic image into the different classes. A customized gradient penalty loss function was utilised. This approach is tested on a dataset costing of 6500 LUS images, collected from 35 COVID-19 patients and labelled according to a validated 4 level scoring system [10.1109/TMI.2020.2994459]. 1000 synthetic images were generated to balance this dataset. The quality of the synthetic images was evaluated through similarity measures, computed with respect to training and unseen data. Moreover, the synthetic images were also evaluated by expert clinicians concerting their capability to mimic a realistic LUS image. In conclusion, the proposed approach appears to be capable to solve the class unbalancing problem by generating LUS images carrying novel information content, comparable to that of real data from new patients.

Breast cancer is type of tumor that occurs in the tissues of the breast. It is most common type of cancer found in women around the world and it is among the leading causes of deaths in women. This article presents the comparative analysis of machine learning, deep learning and data mining techniques being used for the prediction of breast cancer. Many researchers have put their efforts on breast cancer diagnoses and prognoses, every technique has different accuracy rate and it varies for different situations, tools and datasets being used. Our main focus is to comparatively analyze different existing Machine Learning and Data Mining techniques in order to find out the most appropriate method that will support the large dataset with good accuracy of prediction. The main purpose of this review is to highlight all the previous studies of machine learning algorithms that are being used for breast cancer prediction and this article provides the all necessary information to the beginners who want to analyze the machine learning algorithms to gain the base of deep learning.

Climate change is decreasing overall yield of crops through amplified water stress, increased disease, pests and weeds’ incidence, and shortened growing season. Sorghum [(Sorghum bicolor) L. Monch], a staple food of around 500 million individuals, promises to be the future crop to ensure food security as it has great adaptation against high temperature, high salinity, and drought stress. It is a C4 plant like many other grasses, that is, maize, sugarcane, millet, and switch grass. It can be used as an alternate energy crop, human food, livestock feed, and for medicinal and industrial purposes. The biomass of sorghum can be used as a source of carbohydrate or as a biofuel via thermochemical route. Although sorghum is relatively more adapted to different stresses, challenges seem to be different in the 21st century. In this chapter, we have summarized the literature related to different biotic and abiotic stresses that are threating sorghum productivity and also discussed how sorghum plant responds to these climatic factors. We have also summarized the use of different conventional as well as modern breeding tools that will help in ideotyping the model sorghum plants to cope future challenges and ensure food security.

Domesticated tomato is an economically important and the most consumed vegetable in the world. Its importance lies in its nutritional properties that make it beneficial for human health. It has been used in botanical studies since hundreds of years because of its interesting features like compound leaves, fleshy fruits, and sympodial branching system. Domesticated tomato is part of Asterids clade that has 13 wild evolutionary relative species. These wild species exhibit genetic diversity and variation in traits. This is the fact that scientific study of wild tomato considerably helps to understand plant defense mechanism, mating system, evolutionary processes, and resistance mechanism which support plants to withstand current and upcoming climate-change scenario.

Salinity is the major environmental stress that affects the growth and productivity of plants. The present study was conducted to determine the effect of salinity on growth and ions uptake by moringa (Moringa oleifera L.) plant. The experiment was carried out in two phases. Initially, a germination test was conducted in the laboratory under the different salinity levels (control, 5, 10, 15, and 20 dS m⁻¹) and found that moringa seeds were germinated only at 5 and 10 dS m⁻¹ salinity levels, and no germination occurred at higher salinity levels (15 and 20 dS m⁻¹). The experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design (CRD) with five replications. In the second phase, three-week old nursery grown plants of moringa were shifted in pots under the five salinity levels (control, 5, 10, 15, and 20 dS m⁻¹). The experiment was laid out in CRD and replicated four times. In pot experiment, the root, shoot length, and dry weights were significantly affected by increasing the salinity levels. The uptake of K⁺ and Ca²⁺ was highly affected at different salinity levels as compared to control and Na⁺ ions accumulation was higher in roots rather than shoot. The results reveal that moringa plant can germinate, survive, and can be cultivated in areas with moderate saline condition.

Objective: The main aim of this research work is to conclude the burden of infection of HBV & HCV in accordance with the social & economic condition. Methodology: This transverse research work carried out at Medicine Department of Allied Hospital, Faisalabad from November 2016 to October 2017. All patients with infection of HBV & HCV from every age group and gender were the part of this research work. The interview of all the patients carried out to know about the previous history of operations, history of needle pricking, shaving from barbers & history of birth to check the risk factors transmission. The patients also told about their social and economic condition. A special organized Performa was in use to record the gathered information. Results: Two hundred patients were the part of this case study. A large quantity of the patients (110) belonged to the age group of thirty-one to forty-five year of age. Male patients were dominant in this case study and constituting sixty percent of the whole amount. All the male patients had a previous history of having shaved from barbers as well as extra utilization of the needles were frequent in both genders constituting 125 of the total patients. Infection of HCV was very common with a seventy-one percentage of the patients. Most of the patients of these infections were poor people of the communities (forty-eight percent). Patients of low social and economic status were more prone to the infection of HCV. There was no significant disparity in the infection of HBV in accordance with the social and economic condition. Conclusion: Conclusions displayed that low economic and social condition had an association with the infection of HCV. The socioeconomic condition is not a direct factor of risk for HCV & HBV but it is the cause of the creation of many other risk aspects. Keywords: Hepatitis, Impact, Economic, Patient, Performa, Aspect, Transmission, Needle.

Objective: The main purpose of this research work is to compare the levels of serum zinc among the patients of TM (Thalassemia Major) & normal healthy controls at Allied Hospital, Faisalabad. Methodology: We completed this research at Allied Hospital, Faisalabad from May to December 2017. Twenty-five males and thirty-six female patients of thalassemia Major were the part of this research work. DFO (deferoxamine) treatment carried out for thirty patients & treatment of thirty-one patients carried out with the amalgamation of DFO (deferoxamine) & DEF (deferiprone). Controls were sixty healthy people with same age & sex. Every patient and control gave two millilitres sample of blood in the state of fasting. The calculation of the cells of blood & serum zinc conducted for both patients and healthy controls. Results: The average age of healthy controls and patients was 15 ± 5 years. The average level of serum zinc was 68.97 ± 21.12μg/dl, 78.10 ± 28.50 μg/dl & and 80.16 ± 26.54 μg/dl in patients of thalassemia Major with deferoxamine, TM with deferoxamine plus deferiprone & healthy controls correspondingly. No significant association was present between healthy controls and patients of TM. Fifty percent of TM with deferoxamine, more than thirty-eight percent TM with deferoxamine plus deferiprone & 32.8 percent healthy controls had hypozincemia. Conclusion: About 50% patients of TM & 33% healthy controls had hypozincemia. The research work displays the less amount of serum zinc is a problem of health in both groups of the participants. Keywords: TM, Serum ZINC, DFO, DEF, Amalgamation and Hypozincemia.

Cloud is an inflection point for customers to transit the burden of infrastructure and platform management to a service provider. There is virtual centralization in cloud computing. This paper provides the state of the art knowledge domain of cloud to developers and researchers. It gives a brief overview of cloud computing and how it relates with grid, cluster, distributed, parallel and GPU computing. We have surveyed different cloud deployment models and essential characteristics of cloud that are required to build cloud architecture. A state of the art study is presented that explores several cloud architectures including discussion of applications, platforms and shared infrastructure of cloud that unveils the sharing mechanism of physical services, networking capabilities and storage. Furthermore, this study covers the primary business service models for instance Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) with vendors of each layer. On the other hand some issues of clouds are also highlighted such as availability of cloud and challenges which include issues regarding security, lack of standards, privacy and location concerns. We analyze several cloud architectures on multiple performance measuring parameters such as scalability, security, cost, performance, reliability, maintenance, and mobile accessibility.

Ozone is one of the most pervasive of the global air pollutants, with impacts on human health, food production and the environment. Present research highlights emphasized the main rural agricultural areas of Rawalpindi and Islamabad for their air quality assessment and visualization in order to evaluate and predict the risk areas to facilitate farmers and policy makers to draft critical guidelines for possible threat of ozone concentrations to the agricultural sector of country in the coming years. Model 400E ozone analyzer was used to determine the ozone concentration. Results indicated the seasonal fluctuation in O3 concentration levels. Mean concentration value of O3 in Rawalpindi and Islamabad is 35 ppb. Climatologically parameters also showed significant association with ozone concentration. Comparison of obtained values of ozone with the WHO standards indicates that O3 levels are still lower than standards. This indicates that we still have a time to reconsider our anthropogenic activities to control the O3 precursors to prevent any deleterious effects on agricultural sector.

In Pakistan a huge number of workers is routinely exposed to various types of chemical contaminants but there is a dearth of information as to the impact of these agents, due to a lack of a routine surveillance system and proper reporting. Prolonged and sometimes acute occupational exposures to varied organic chemicals may result in numerous health related problems. Studies from all over the world have shown adverse health outcomes of chemicals that are commonly used in various occupations. Such chemical exposures are not just confined to the workplace, but the residents surrounding industrial sites also face significant health risks due to indirect chemical exposure. Occupational exposure is a multidimensional risk factor that varies from one occupation to another, and is associated with health decline in workers. Common determinants of workplace hazards include improper, or lack of use of self-protective equipment, active and passive exposure to cigarette smoke as well as the socio-demographic and economic background of workers. There may be more than one cause of occupational stress and psychophysical disturbance among workers such as workload, lower salaries, and lack of social and medical facilities; indeed, their general health is poor. Therefore, in Pakistan, it is particularly important to focus on these issues and set rules and regulations to create occupational hazard awareness among workers, which will promote health safety at work places. If priorities are given to the correct use of self-protective equipment, adopting proper hygiene at the workplace and to avoid smoking, occupational exposures and consequent health risks may be minimized significantly.

Organic food is getting much preference worldwide because they are free of diseases pure and possess good physiochemical features. Taking the beneficial impact of organic production, into account, this study was conducted under a poly tunnel system using five organic media mixtures including. T0: (Control) Soil + Sand (1: 1), T1 Soil + Silt + Farm Yard Manure (1: 1: 1), T2: Soil + Silt + Leaf Manure (1: 1: 1), T3: Soil + Silt + Poultry Manure (1: 1: 1) and T4: Soil + Silt + Coconut Coir Dust (1: 1: 1). Effects of these growing media on the reproductive growth parameters and subsequently on the quality of parameter of its fruit strawberry (Fragaria annanasa Duch.) cv. “Chandler” were recorded by using randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. Result showed that different reproductive growth parameters of the strawberry plant were also affected by the different growing media. It was observed that coconut coir dust based medium (T4) proved to be the best medium in many aspects. Treatment T4 produced favorable effects on other relevant growth stages. Its influence was also positive on the average number of trusses with (4.33), average number of flowers per truss (6.33), average number of flowers (96), flower size (1.90 cm), average number of fruit set (16.00), average number of fruits (72.96) and fruit size (3.01 cm). Improvement in the fruit weight was observed on T3 (10.0 g). Effect of T4 growing medium was also prominent on fruits color with maximum value of luminance, L* (32.67), redness, a* (29.00), chromaticity, C* (26.00) with low value of b* (7.500) and hue angle, h° (14.00) due to which fruits were more bright and reddish in color. Moreover it also improved the ascorbic acid contents (68.00 mg 100-1 ml) in fruits. The growing medium, T1 improved the total soluble solids (6.26%) of the fruits with an additional improvement in total sugars (15.92%). A significant effect on total sugars was also induced by T4 (15.22%) in strawberry fruits. Key words: Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa), growing media, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid, total sugar, trussess, farm yard manure, coconut coir dust, leaf manure, poultry manure, growing media.