Higher Education Commission

Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs) remain a major preventable cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where infection prevention and control (IPC) systems often lack the structural and operational maturity needed to ensure patient safety. Pakistan’s public hospitals historically demonstrated inadequate IPC capacity, and the impact of COVID-19–related investments on long-term programme strengthening remains unclear. Objective: To assess post-pandemic IPC capacity in four public sector hospitals in Islamabad using the WHO IPC Assessment Framework (IPCAF), compare 2023 findings with 2019 baseline scores, and identify persistent gaps across IPC core components. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted from February to July 2023 in four tertiary public hospitals previously assessed in 2019. Data were collected using the WHO IPCAF tool through structured interviews, document review, and direct observation. Descriptive statistics were generated, and paired comparisons of overall 2019–2023 scores were performed. Results: All hospitals improved from “Inadequate” (9.7–20.6%) in 2019 to “Basic” IPC capacity (29.2–46.5%) in 2023, with a significant mean increase of 20.5 percentage points (p = 0.018). IPC Guidelines and Built Environment were the strongest components, whereas HAI Surveillance, Multimodal Strategies, and Monitoring/Audit & Feedback remained critically low across hospitals. Conclusion: IPC capacity in Islamabad’s public hospitals improved post-pandemic; however, foundational gaps in surveillance and quality-improvement systems persist. Strengthening these domains is essential for advancing hospitals toward higher IPC maturity and reducing HCAI burden.

To clarify the pollution characteristics of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and nitro-PAHs (NPAHs) in the East Asian monsoon region under different atmospheric environments and to assess their potential influences on receptor areas, this study selected two background monitoring stations with different environments in Shimane Prefecture, Japan: a marine station (MB) and a forest station (SF). PM2.5 samples were simultaneously collected using a high-volume sampler during the summer and winter of 2022–2023, and ten PAHs and three NPAHs were quantified using HPLC. The concentrations of PAHs and NPAHs at MB and SF exhibited significant seasonal variations in 2022 (winter > summer). However, in 2023, a clear seasonal difference was observed only at MB. Isomer ratio analysis of PAHs at both stations indicated that traffic emissions and biomass or coal combustion were major contributors. Seasonal variations in the [2-NFR]/[1-NP] ratio indicated that, while high ratios at MB and SF during summer were mainly associated with local photochemical formation, low ratios in winter reflected long-range transportation of combustion-derived PAHs and NPAHs from the Asian continent. Incremental lifetime cancer risk values (10−7 to 10−11) indicated that even at background stations, the atmospheric environment poses certain health risks. This first comparative investigation of PAHs and NPAHs at two distinct background stations in Shimane again highlights the importance of international cooperation among East Asian countries for effective air pollution control.

This quantitative research explored the effect of emotionally adaptive AI interventions on students' academic motivation and dropout prevention who were involved in virtual learning environments in Pakistan. Following a descriptive research approach and simple random sampling, 150 students' data were collected with the help of a structured Likert-scale questionnaire. Statistical procedures such as regression, multiple regression, and ANOVA were used to analyze the relationship between AI-based emotional support, motivation, and dropouts. The results validated the presence of strong positive correlation between emotional adaptive AI and motivational academicity (H1), where AI intervention was strongly predictive of high levels of motivation. Multi-regression analysis (H2) also revealed that AI intervention has significant impact on student engagement by acting in the role of a moderator for emotional experience with demographic variables mediating in the above dynamic. ANOVA findings (H3) of statistically significant variation in dropout rates between academic level and region indicate contextual factors influencing AI effectiveness. The findings suggest that emotionally intelligent AI can motivate, enhance emotion and memory and help students learn more in virtual classrooms. The report stresses that combining cultural and psychological elements into AI on online learning must be done to encourage better student engagement and lower attrition. The findings mean that educational institutions ought to enhance their virtual learning environment by using AI-powered emotional support services for students. It is recommended that future researchers analyze the continuous effects and international use of emotionally adaptive AI in schools.

The fog-enabled healthcare IoT (F-HIoT) paradigm is impending for the prospective patient-healthcare applications. The fog nodes permit the smart medical wearables (SMWs) to upload the information with low latency using 5G services. The security risks associated with the distributed attributes of fog nodes may hamper the monitoring of real-time medical reports with privacy. Many authenticated key exchange techniques can be witnessed to strengthen the interactions among SMW devices, fog nodes, and cloud server on insecure channels; however these are either based on computation-intensive crypto-primitives, or fail to provide anonymity to the F-HIoT end users. In this scheme, we propose an ultralightweight anonymous authentication protocol (FA-SMW) leveraging low-cost crypto-primitive operations, i.e., Chebyshev chaotic map for setting up a mutually agreed session key among three entities. The security properties of FA-SMW are evaluated and analyzed under random oracle model and Canetti–Krawczyk (eCK) threat model. These findings suggest that the proposed protocol considerably meets the desired requirements in the fog-enabled F-HIoT system.

There is a direct connection and relationship between elections and electorates. Even All the voting patterns rightly emerge from the election-electorate binary eventually determine the fate of electoral process which both results and inculcates into the government-making with all modes of decision-making and functioning, law-making and smooth functioning of all the organs of the state including executive or administration, policy making and judiciary, etc. However; it marks ideal approach which seems quite different from ground realities. The political epoch of 1970-1988 tells the different stories revolving around three variables i. e. Electorates, Electioneering and Electoral Politics as dependent variables under one big independent variable—Bhutto-Zia Antagonism which proved watershed to the forthcoming history of the nation which can be taken as hypothesis. This study is a fresh look into the then political arena based on the functioning and results of the aforementioned variables. As the historical record of Pakistani Elections manifests, they had been held on the need-based intervals due to the weak democratic institutions, complexity of the power-play and political instability which have been categorically discussed by the election experts worldwide. For instance; the results of 1970 General Elections were not accepted by the political and other stakeholders that led to rifts and dichotomies and ultimately claimed the integrity of the country on gloomy note. Similarly; the 1977 General Elections were the worst example of ‘electioneering’ and mistreatment of the expectations of electorates which invited General Zia to marshal the circumstances. Here, in the research in hand, an effort has been made to highlight the role of electorates, albeit the dominance of electioneering and gradual decline of the response of the electorates in forthcoming series of elections in summative as well analytical manner and this will help in establishing as well as developing an overall understanding of the phenomenon, especially in Pakistani perspective.

Background of the Study: The aim of the present research was to examine the assessment practices of Speech-Language Pathologists for Cognitive Communication Disorders after Traumatic Brain Injury. Methodology: It was a cross-sectional survey method, a convenient sampling technique. Research was carried out from January 2021 to June 2021. The sample size was n=21, out of which n= 9 (42.8%) participants, each from Rawalpindi and Islamabad n= 3 (14.4%) participants from Lahore filled in their responses. Medium; being Online, the questionnaire was distributed either through email, WhatsApp or Facebook MessengerApp. SLPs who were undergraduates or who had no experience working with TBI clients were excluded. Questionnaire included 12 items. Responses of research participants were recorded using Google Forms and presented in the form of n (%). The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis, and chi-square analysis was performed to confirm the association between settings, city of practice and years of experience through Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 22.0. Results: Speech-Language Pathologists reported that they routinely assessed (62% each) Receptive and Expressive communication. However; less than half of the participants routinely evaluated domains like verbal pragmatic skills (43.3%), functional communication (33.3%) and phonemic awareness (33.3%). SLPs assessed their clients by employing tests like MoCA (55.62%), Quick Aphasia Battery (18.75%), Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA Protocol) (14.35%) and a combination of Formal (48%) and Informal (52%) clinical interviews. Conclusion: Informal discourse assessment is incorporated more frequently as compared to informal discourse evaluation in assessment practices of Speech-Language pathologists of Pakistan for cognitive communication impairment followed by traumatic brain injury. Keywords: Brain injuries, cognitive dysfunction, language therapy, rehabilitation, speech therapy, traumatic.