The situation of air quality is worse in the developing countries where annually million lives are lost as a result of impaired air quality which stems from poor socio-economic conditions and lack of awareness. Although a few studies have been conducted regarding air pollution monitoring in Pakistan, no baseline data has been generated to gather information about the indoor air quality. Besides this, there is yet no practical implication to reduce and/or remove the load of pollutants present in the air. Moreover, the studies conducted so far have limited their focus on aerosol emissions from biomass burning and the associated health outcomes in rural areas. So far any detailed study on the indoor air quality of urban centers in Pakistan has not yet been reported. Particulate matter and bioaerosols are two of the most important components of the air we breathe as both of these are ubiquitous in the air. Many studies have reported a number of negative health outcomes owing to a prolonged exposure to these two pollutants and their synergistic effect is also documented to be detrimental for human health. Keeping in view the insufficient data regarding the concentration of fine particulate matter and bioaerosols in the indoor air of urban centers in Pakistan, the current study was designed to monitor the air quality of indoor micro-environments of residential houses (n = 30) of Lahore, Pakistan. The parameters monitored were fine particulate matter and bio-aerosols. PM2.5 was monitored using DustTrak aerosol monitor (model 8520, TSI Inc.) while Koch sedimentation method was employed for microbial sampling. The kitchens and living rooms were identified as two major micro-environments of any residential household and thus were marked to be monitored at each of the selected sites. The ventilation rates were also measured using the tracer gas method with carbon dioxide as the tracer gas. PM2.5 monitoring was carried out for 72 hours each with both micro-environments being monitored in parallel while agar coated Petri plates were exposed for twenty minutes at each location to collect the bacteria and fungi suspended in the air settling by gravity. Temperature and relative humidity were also noted during bio-aerosol sampling. Our results were indicative of poor air quality in the residential indoor environments of Lahore. The 24-h average PM2.5 levels at any of the monitored site were manifolds higher than the WHO recommended limits of 25μg/m³. Overall, the mean levels of fine particulate matter exceeded 13 times the WHO limits. It was observed that cooking, cleaning, movement of people, space heating (during winters) and smoking (in some houses) were the principal indoor sources of particulate pollution. Maximum and minimum air change rate per hour (ACH) was determined for each micro-environment to observe the influence of ventilation on the indoor air quality and was observed to have a significant impact upon PM levels. Low ventilation rates during winter season as well as meteorological factors resulted in elevated PM levels indoors during the colder months. The exposure risk of the inhabitants, most particularly women and small children, was greatly increased as they spent maximum time indoors. The micro-biota of the sampled sites was comprised of common genera which were also identified as opportunistic pathogens. The bacterial composition was consisting of seven species including Micrococcus spp., Staphylococcus spp., and Bacillus spp., with occasional record of Serratia spp. Among the eleven fungal species identified, the dominant ones were Alternaria alternata and Aspergillus spp., with Trichoderma, Mucor, Fusarium and Rhizopus also detected in less numbers. The colony forming units per cubic meter for bacteria ranged from 472 to 9,829 in the kitchens and from 275 to 14,469 in the living rooms. Likewise, the fungal cfu/m3 ranged between 234 and 1887 in the kitchen and from 314 to 1887 in the living room. A seasonal variation in bioaerosols was evident in the kitchens while being not so pronounced in the living rooms. Linear regression model exhibited a direct association of temperature with bacteria and fine particulate matter but not with fungi. Out of thirty monitored households, sixteen contained at least one individual with allergic reactions from dust or during wheat harvesting season. These findings highlight the enhanced risk of exposure to fine particulate matter as well as bioaerosols in the urban residential built environment in Pakistan. The study holds its significance in being the first of its kind as previously no data focusing on simultaneously measured PM and bioaerosol levels in the urban centres of Pakistan has been reported. With the lack of any definite policies, the area of indoor air quality has been ignored at large. It is recommended that more detailed studies must be conducted to monitor air quality in the built micro-environments and guidelines should be formulated to keep a check on the contaminant levels indoors.
انگریزی ذریعہ تعلیم ہماری ضرورت پاکستان ایک ترقی پذیر ملک ہے اس میں رہنے والے لوگ اتنے تعلیم یافتہ نہیں ہیں جتنے دیگر ممالک کے لوگ علم سے بہرہ ور ہیں۔ اس کی وجوہات اور بھی بہت سی ہیں ان میں ایک وجہ انگریزی سے عدم دلچسپی ہے۔ انگلش لینگوئج سیکھے بغیر ہم دیگر اقوام کے ہم پلہ ہونے کا دعوی نہیں کر سکتے۔ اس لیے کہ کسی قوم کے نشیب وفراز ، افراط وتفریط اور اس کے اسباب کا اندازہ لگانا ہو تو اس کی زبان پر گرفت انتہائی ضروری ہے۔ ازاں بعد ہی ہم اپنی خوبیوں اور خامیوں کا اس سے موازنہ کر سکتے ہیں اور ترقی کی راہ میں آنیوالی رکاوٹوں کا سد باب کر سکتے ہیں۔ دیگر اقوام کا مطالعہ ہی ان کی تاریخ سے آشناکرتا ہے اور پھر وہ اسباب جن کی بدولت اس اقوام پر تنزل اور ترقی کا دور گزرا اس سے آگاہی ہوتی ہے۔ آج کل ترقی یافتہ اقوام اسی زبان سے وابستہ ہیں۔ اس لیے اس کو ذریعہ تعلیم بنانا اس لحاظ سے ضروری ہے۔ انگریزی ایک بین الاقوامی زبان ہے اور متعددممالک میں بولی اور سمجھی جاتی ہے پھر اپنی اقتصادی اور معاشی ترقی کے لیے اس کی تفہیم کی اشد ضرورت ہے۔ ہماری نئی نسل اس زبان سے واقفیت کی بدولت ہی معیاری قسم کی ملازمتوں سے فائدہ اُٹھاسکتی ہیں۔ انگریزی سے واقفیت کی بنا پر ہم اپنے تعلیمی معیار کو بلند کر سکتے ہیں ، دیگر ممالک کی جامعات میں تعلیم حاصل کر سکتے ہیں۔ بلکہ تدریسی فرائض سرانجام دے سکتے ہیں۔ آج کل اکثرممالک اس زبان کی طرف خصوصی توجہ دے رہے ہیں۔ اور انہوں نے اپنے اپنے تعلیمی اداروں میں شروع سے ہی انگلش کوذریعہ تعلیم بنایا ہے۔ پاکستان میں بھی انگلش میڈیم سکول سسٹم کا اجرا ہو چکا ہے اور ہمارے ارباب...
Despite being the torch bearers of the glorious tradition of Islamic learning and ethical training, the madāris have been the target of Western on slaught in modern times. As immense importance was given to the acquisition of knowledge in Islam, the early centers of Islamic knowledge were imparting education according to the letter and spirit of it, but with the passage of time that tradition could not be upheld. Though Qarawiyīn, Al-Azahar, Niẓāmiyah are a few classical madāris where religious and secular teachings were incorporated into one, the latter madāris separated the religious from the secular (worldly) education. Formation of colonial states made the condition worse. During the Afghan war, the madāris flourished in Pakistan but after 9/11 they were deemed responsible for the attack. The paper aims at producing a discourse on this transition of madrassa education from tradition to modernity and intends to suggest recommendations for the upgradation and revival of the educational system of madāris.
This work is mainly based on quantum game-theoretic techniques and their applica- tion to quantum information theory. Quantum game theory is an important development in quantum computation and may have implications for quantum information and quan- tum communication. The e ect of quantum memory on quantum games have been stud- ied. Three di erent games such as, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Battle of the Sexes and Chicken have been analyzed in the quantum domain. By considering the restricted game situa- tion, it is shown that the e ects of quantum memory and decoherence become e ective in a maximally entangled case. For which the quantum player can out perform the classical player in all the three games. It is also shown that the quantum player enjoys an advan- tage over the classical player in Battle of the Sexes game for the amplitude-damping and the depolarizing channels. The quantum memory compensates the reduction in player’s payo s due to decoherence. It has no e ect on the Nash equilibria of the three games. A generalization of two-player quantization scheme to a three-player Prisoner’s Dilemma game under the e ect of correlated noise is also presented. In a restricted game scenario, it is shown the quantum player is always better ofor all values of the decoherence para- meter s for the entire range of memory parameter. It is seen that for maximum degree of correlation, the game does not become noiseless and quantum player can still outscore the classical players for the entire range of the decoherence parameter s> producing an interesting result in comparison with a two-player quantum game. It is also shown that correlated noise has no e ect on the Nash equilibrium of the game. By exploiting the three-player quantization scheme, we have studied the communi- cation aspects of a three-player Prisoner’s Dilemma quantum game. It is shown that entanglement plays a dominant role in a three-player quantum game. On the basis of initial state and the measurement basis entanglement parameters, a relation among dif- ferent payo s is established. It is investigated that the strategies of the players act as information carriers in quantum games. A relationship for the information shared among the parties is also established.A scheme for quantum key distribution is proposed in which a secret key can be generated from the data coming through a partially entanglement breaking channel. This scheme is rather deterministic and e!cient in the sense that two classical bits can be transferred per entangled pair of qubits. Furthermore, it is important to point out that, in this scheme, same symbol can be used for Eve’s detection and key generation. It is also worth noting that the eavesdropper, Eve, can be detected very easily from the disturbance of the elements of the decoding bimatrix. We have checked for the security of the scheme and found it secure against individual attacks. It is further investigated that quantum games are useful in developing quantum cryp- tographic protocols. A multiparty quantum cryptographic protocol using tripartite en- tangled GHZ states is devised using game-theoretic techniques. In this protocol, two classical bits can be transferred per entangled pair of qubits to the communicating par- ties. Unitary operators applied by the sender on a tripartite entangled state encodes a classical symbol that can be decoded at receiver’s end with the help of a decoding matrix. In this protocol, if Eve interferes during the transmission, she can be detected by the disturbance of the decoding matrix. Our security analysis shows that this protocol is also secure against intercept/re-send attacks.