Work-family conflict and fear of COVID-19 and its relationship with the physical and mental health of Pakistani working women

Work-family conflict is a conflict between societal expectations and the interaction of interrelated work and family domains. It is essential to understand the impact of COVID-19 on working women's physical and mental health in Pakistan to advise better health policy. This research aims to determine work-family conflict’s impact on working women’s physical and mental health. Through non-probability sampling, 100 working women were sampled online across different cities of Pakistan. The participants were selected from different working fields. Only women above the age of 20 years were eligible for participation in this study. The study found that work-family conflict positively correlates with the fear of COVID19, blood pressure, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Psychologists, counselors, and general physicians for primary and preventive care in Pakistan need to work towards counselling and supporting the health needs of working women to prevent biopsychosocial problems related to work-family conflict and fear of COVID-19. Keywords: anxiety, blood pressure, depression, fear of covid-19, work-family conflict.

Quantum Effects on Low Frequency Waves in Dense Plasmas

Thelowfrequencyelectrostaticandelectromagneticwavesindenseplasmas arestudied usingthequantumhydrodynamicformulation.Severallinearandnonlinearwavesin uniform as well as nonuniform plasmas are investigated taking into account the quantum diffraction and quantum statistical effects. In an inhomogenous plasma, the drift type wave can appear which doesn’t require electron temperature to be non‐zero for its existence and the electron quantum effects contribute to the wave dispersion at very short length scales. Theeffectofstationarydustisalsodiscussed.Itisalsofoundthatthedriftwaveof ultracolddenseplasmacancouplewithAlfvenwaveandthelineardispersionrelationis analogoustotheclassicalplasmacase.Butphysically,boththedispersionrelationsare verydifferent.Thedispersionrelationsareanalyzednumericallyforparticularcasesof ultracold dense plasma. In a homogenous quantum plasmas, the linear waves are studied for electron‐ion as well as stationarydustcase.Itisfoundthatthequantumion‐acousticwavefrequencyinthe presenceofbackgrounddustincreaseswithelectronquantumeffectsanddust concentration.Inamagnetizedelectron‐ionplasma,thewavefrequencyincreaseswith electron number density and magnetic field. The linearly coupled electrostatic and Alfven wavesarealsoinvestigatedandtheroleofelectronfermionicpressureinthewave dynamicsofdensequantumplasmasispointedout.Acomparisonoffermionicpressure with the quantum pressure due to Bohm potential term is presented. The limit of ultracold dense plasma is discussed in the light of this comparison. The wave dispersion properties for static as well as dynamic ions are elaborated. In the nonlinear regime, it is found that the dust concentration in unmagnetized plasma increasestheamplitudeandwidthofdustion‐acousticsolitonwhereastheincreasein quantumdiffractionparameterreducesthewidthofthesoliton,butdoesn’taffectits amplitude. For, magnetized electron‐ion quantumplasma, the quantumdiffraction effects arefoundtoincreasetheamplitudeaswellaswidthofthesolitons.Theincreasein magnetic field shrinks the soliton keeping the amplitude constant. The results presented in this thesis are supported by numerical analysis and illustrations. Therelevanceofthestudywiththedenseastrophysicalandlaboratoryplasmasisalso pointed out. Keywords: Dense quantum plasmas, low frequency waves, quantum effects, solitons, etc.