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PurposeAlthough past research has looked into myriad consequences of workplace incivility, little attention has been paid to the effects of supervisor incivility (SI) on employees' sense of vitality and their discretionary work effort (DWE). Moreover, the mechanisms that drive the harmful effects of SI remain largely unknown. The current study seeks to address these gaps in the literature. In particular, this study aims to examine how SI culminates in decreased DWE.Design/methodology/approachAdopting a cross-sectional survey design, data for this study were gathered from 151 employees of two large companies in the financial services sector of Pakistan. A number of analysis techniques (e.g. confirmatory factor analysis and bootstrapping) were used to analyze the data.FindingsAs predicted, SI was found to be negatively associated both with subordinates' sense of vitality and DWE while vitality was found to be positively associated with DWE. Findings also indicated that one way in which SI negatively affects subordinates' DWE is by decreasing their sense of vitality.Practical implicationsThis study offers several useful implications for management practice in relation to preventing SI and mitigating its effects and bolstering employees' sense of vitality.Originality/valueTo the best of the knowledge, this study is the first to unpack the relationship dynamics of SI, vitality and DWE, and to introduce a mechanism by which SI translates into reduced DWE.

Purpose: News media in third world countries remained under social, religious, political and military pressure. Developing countries in presence of pressure groups cannot enjoy the fruits of a democratic setup. So, the purpose of study is to explore factors of downsizing in traditional media organizations and their future in wake of pressure groups, which create hindrance in freedom of expression. Design/ Methodology/ Approach: Qualitative approach was employed to explore the causes behind the undesired downsizing. Researchers chosen 15 respondents working on senior positions in different traditional media organization from different stations of Pakistan including Islamabad, Lahore, Multan, Bahawalpur and Karachi based on purposive sampling. Findings: Results revealed the incumbent government changed its stance on freedom of expression and adopted each modus operandi to silence the voices from journalistic corners. The government promoted selective part of freedom of expression by highlighting the anchors speaking in favor of the party. Implications/ Originality/ Value: So, the study concluded traditional media organizations should be reorganized and government should extend its democratic support for protecting freedom of expression. The study recommended the government should remain impartial and provide space to traditional news organizations so that the citizens should be provided with right to know.

Pakistan is striving hard to maximize the coverage of the immunization program but still it is facing many barriers and challenges against the diseases which can be prevented through vaccination. There are many barriers other than the administrative and availability of vaccine like parents cooperation is lacking among poor and illiterate community, awareness about the benefits of vaccination plan is missing and also the vaccinator are at high risk in low socio economic areas for their life. Maintaining cold chain in transportation, storage and management is also a challenge for the health officials. The EPI program in Pakistan is sponsored by WHO and UNICEF. The donors are struggling to overcome the management issue and also the coverage enhancement of vaccine especially in areas where the preventable disease were reported. The present study was conducted in Nishter Hospital Multan and total of 200 children were taken as a sample from the time period of July 2018 to March 2019.Majority of the children received the vaccination on time and the few who missed the vaccine dose were due to their lack of attention to the benefits of the plan and also due to the hard access to the area. Poor awareness is the main cause of missing the dose among rural women. Conclusion is to sensitize the mother to avail the full EPI plan for their children under age of 2 years and also the government health official should plan to increase the coverage of the program. Awareness creation about the better child health is the need of the time especially in the areas where the literacy rate is poor and the people are living a life which is below the standard of quality life. It is concluded from this study that it is the responsibility of Government and Health Professionals to find solutions to increases vaccination rate and coverage. It is the need of hour to find ways for creating awareness among parents and motivate them to follow complete vaccination schedule for the sake of better child health. Key Words: EPI, Vaccines, , mortality, ...

In everyday life, people use internet to express and share opinions, facts, and sentiments about products and services. In addition, social media applications such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc., have become important information sharing platforms. Apart from these, a collection of product reviews, facts, poll information, etc., is a need for every company or organization ranging from start-ups to big firms and governments. Clearly, it is very challenging to analyse such big data to improve products, services, and satisfy customer requirements. Therefore, it is necessary to automate the evaluation process using advanced sentiment analysis techniques. Most of previous works focused on uni-modal sentiment analysis mainly textual model. In this paper, a novel Arabic multimodal dataset is presented and validated using state-of-the-art support vector machine (SVM) based classification method.

Abstract  The aim of this study was to assess how the introduction of new service policies in the United Kingdom – such as person‐centered planning and the active development of support networks – was impacting the lives of carers of people with intellectual disability from South Asian backgrounds. Using a semistructured interview schedule, 19 families of South Asian background living in an urban conurbation were interviewed about their service use and needs with respect to providing care for their family member with an intellectual disability. The families experienced material disadvantage, poor health, and did not access services to the same extent as did the general population in the UK. Overall, community participation was low and only two individuals with an intellectual disability had a care plan as outlined in the latest UK government policies. The introduction of these new policies did not appear to have positively impacted the lives of the individuals interviewed in this study. The results were similar to findings of studies in other parts of Britain: that is, the culture of caring and protecting the individual with an intellectual disability, combined with the importance of family life over an outside social life, ran somewhat counter to the underlying principles of current national disability policy (i.e., promoting individual rights and independent living). It is suggested that attempts to implement these policies risks alienating carers of South Asian descent from service providers and their implementation must be done in a culturally sensitively context.

Last few months have seen some significant developments in Afghanistan including, but not limited to, the presidential elections and the formation of Ghani-Abdullah national government and subsequent signing of the pending Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US. These developments will undoubtedly play an important part in shaping the internal and external dynamics of the country in years to come. It is also an established fact that any development, small or big, in Afghanistan has a bearing of one sort or the other on Pakistan as well. It was in this background that Policy Perspectives sought the analysis of selected but key Pakistani opinion makers, representing various sections of society, as to what the developments taking place across the Durand line will mean for Pakistan in addition to their overall impact upon and linkages with the regional situation. This symposium is a product of the responses thus generated over past few months' period.

BACKGROUND/AIMS—Landmines have long been used in conventional warfare. These are antipersonnel mines which continue to injure people long after a ceasefire without differentiating between friend or foe, soldier or civilian, women or children. This study focuses on Afghan non-combatants engaged in mine clearing operations in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Russo-Afghan war. The patterns and types of injuries seen are described and experiences in their management, ways, and means to prevent them, and recommendations for the rehabilitation of the affected individuals are given. METHODS—It is a retrospective and analytical study of 84 patients aged 19-56 years who sustained mine blast injuries during mine clearing operations in Afghanistan from November 1992 to January 1996. The study was carried out at a military hospital with tertiary care facilities. The patients were divided into three groups on the basis of their injuries. Group 1 required only general surgical attention, group 2 sustained only ocular injuries, while group 3 had combined ocular and general injuries. Patients in groups 2 and 3 were treated in two phases. The first phase aimed at immediate restoration of the anatomy, while restoration of function wherever possible was done in subsequent surgical procedures in the second phase. RESULTS—It was observed that 51 out of 84 patients (60.7%) had sustained ocular trauma of a variable degree as a result of the blasts. The mean age of the victims was 29 years and they were all male. A total of 91 eyes of 51 patients (89.2%) had been damaged. Bilaterality of damage was seen in 40 (78.4%) patients. Most, 34 (37.3%), eyes became totally blind (NPL). Only a few escaped with injury mild enough not to impair vision. Foreign bodies, small and multiple, were found in the majority of eyes; most, however, were found in the anterior segment, and posterior segment injuries were proportionally less. CONCLUSIONS—The prevalence of blindness caused by mine blast injuries is quite high. The resulting psychosocial ...

Financial time series analysis is an important research area that can predict various economic indicators such as the foreign currency exchange rate. In this paper, a deep-learning-based model is proposed to forecast the foreign exchange rate. Since the currency market is volatile and susceptible to ongoing social and political events, the proposed model incorporates event sentiments to accurately predict the exchange rate. Moreover, as the currency market is heavily dependent upon highly volatile factors such as gold and crude oil prices, we considered these sensitive factors for exchange rate forecasting. The validity of the model is tested over three currency exchange rates, which are Pak Rupee to US dollar (PKR/USD), British pound sterling to US dollar (GBP/USD), and Hong Kong Dollar to US dollar (HKD/USD). The study also shows the importance of incorporating investor sentiment of local and foreign macro-level events for accurate forecasting of the exchange rate. We processed approximately 5.9 million tweets to extract major events&rsquo ; sentiment. The results show that this deep-learning-based model is a better predictor of foreign currency exchange rate in comparison with statistical techniques normally employed for prediction. The results present evidence that the exchange rate of all the three countries is more exposed to events happening in the US.

This cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes and practices of secondary school students regarding carbonated drinks in the district of Rahim Yar Khan, Punjab, Pakistan. This study was conducted through a self-reported questionnaire, and 350 students participated in the survey from rural (n=148; 42.29%) and urban areas (n=202; 57.71%). 77.02% of rural students and 84.65% of urban students were aware of carbonated drinks. 31.08% of rural and 44.05% of urban students were mindful of carbonated drinks' components (p=0.014). 16.89% of rural students and 81.76% of urban students were known to know the caloric values of carbonated drinks (p<0.001). 89.19% of rural and 96.04% of urban students were aware of sugar-free carbonated drinks (p=0.012). 85.81% of rural students and 76.73% of urban students believed that consuming carbonated drinks is bad for health (p=0.034). 66.89 %, 11.49%, 34.46% 70.95% & 68.92% rural students and 82.18%, 40.09%, 29.21%, 84.16% & 83.17% urban students thought that carbonated drinks had association with obesity (p=0.001), bone decay (< 0.001), dental caries (p=0.296), belching (p=0.003) and hyperacidity (p=0.002) respectively. 66.89% & 75.68% of rural students and 74.25% & 79.21% of urban students believed that carbonated drinks were associated with diabetes type II and sleep disturbance, respectively. 64.19% of rural and 71.78% of urban respondents showed positive attitudes and agreed to stop consuming soft drinks. Most secondary school students from both areas preferred to drink carbonated soft drinks even with their awareness of the health issues of these drinks. Potential repercussions from the authorities in charge of the government might raise people's awareness of the problem.

Yes ; Gait is a unique non-invasive biometric form that can be utilized to effectively recognize persons, even when they prove to be uncooperative. Computer-aided gait recognition systems usually use image sequences without considering covariates like clothing and possessions of carrier bags whilst on the move. Similarly, in gait recognition, there may exist unknown covariate conditions that may affect the training and testing conditions for a given individual. Consequently, common techniques for gait recognition and measurement require a degree of intervention leading to the introduction of unknown covariate conditions, and hence this significantly limits the practical use of the present gait recognition and analysis systems. To overcome these key issues, we propose a method of gait analysis accounting for both known and unknown covariate conditions. For this purpose, we propose two methods, i.e., a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based gait recognition and a discriminative features-based classification method for unknown covariate conditions. The first method can handle known covariate conditions efficiently while the second method focuses on identifying and selecting unique covariate invariant features from the gallery and probe sequences. The feature set utilized here includes Local Binary Patterns (LBP), Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), and Haralick texture features. Furthermore, we utilize the Fisher Linear Discriminant Analysis for dimensionality reduction and selecting the most discriminant features. Three classifiers, namely Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Multilayer Perceptron are used for gait recognition under strict unknown covariate conditions. We evaluated our results using CASIA and OUR-ISIR datasets for both clothing and speed variations. As a result, we report that on average we obtain an accuracy of 90.32% for the CASIA dataset with unknown covariates and similarly performed excellently on the ISIR dataset. Therefore, our proposed method outperforms existing methods for gait recognition under known and unknown covariate conditions. ; This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (NRF-2019R1F1A1060668).