Historical, Cultural and Geographical Ties Between Pakistan and Iran

In order to get a vivid picture of Pakistan-Iran relations, the paper delves into the past with Iranian history and Iranian sphere of influence in South Asia. Both South Asia and Iran have ancient historical, cultural and religious ties since the times of the Cyrus the Great to the present. The Persian language and literature particularly the Persian classical poetry have left a great impression on sub-continent’s cultural and educational canvass. Pakistan-Iran border which was drawn by the British in the 1880s, remains still intact. Though the border is a wasteland with little agriculture but on the sea-front both the countries have access to the Strait of Hormuz which is of great strategic importance. Moreover, ethnic Baloch live on both sides of the border and crossborder and trade and livestock is the mainstay of cross-border economy. During the Cold War period, both Pakistan and Iran were subservient to the US policies against the Soviet Union; consequently, both received massive arms and equipment. This paper also indicates that during Mohammed Reza Shah’s time, the relations between Pakistan and Iran were quite friendly but they underwent a change after the Iranian revolution and during General Zia’s time. The main issues have been spelled out up-till 1979 and the minor frictions between the two countries could be managed through diplomacy. External pressures are also influencing the contemporary relations between the two countries and have put Pakistan in a dilemma. Historical and secondary sources have been used for the conduct of the study. Historical research has an important role to play in the Social Sciences. It helps us to understand the present by highlighting the past events.

A Systematic Research on Usability Review of Mental Health Apps for Ios and Android Platform

A variety of healthcare applications have been introduced so far. For the success of such applications their usability plays a significant role. The more the application is user friendly and easy to use the more percentage it will get to be adopted by the consumers. This work reviews and evaluates range of mental health applications in terms of their usability. There are some approaches that could prove to be best usability indicator for the mobile apps and can determine how well their functionalities work. Some of the major approaches to usability testing are user testing, surveying, A/B testing and expert based evaluation. The usability testing has explored the missing factors in usability of the mental health related mobile apps. At the start, all the data related to mobile health apps is collected according to which an excel sheet is prepared. The excel filecontain all the necessary information (name, language, date of release/latest update, availability on Android or iOS, availability as freeware or in-app purchase, cost, availability as lite-version, number of downloads/ installations, user rating, number of user ratings, availability of an interface/connectivityto (an) external sensor(s)/ devices and type of external sensor(s)/ devices) . The study has figured out the range of functions supported in each mental health apps that includes information about disease function, add/remove more than one patient diary, scheduling function, advisory function/ therapy support, treatment, diagnosis/symptoms, messaging, result tracking/ graph creation /visual representation and treatment adherence/rewards. After data collection usability testing is performed in a closed environment. A team of 6 members (3 male, 3 female) performed usability test on 10% of collected apps. In usability testing the major factors analyzed is comprehensibility, presentation (image and text), affordability, efficiency and error rate. The analysis is performed to observe effects of some factors (like range of functions, platform effectiveness, etc.) on usability of mobile apps and see if these factors affect app usability in a positive or negative manner. It is observed that the number of mental health apps available in Android is much more than those available in iOS. However, the user rating of iOS apps is higher than that of android. It is noticed much improvements can be made to increase the usability of mobile health apps. For instance, by providing help related functions, increases the understandability of various app?s features and hence can increase user interaction and app?s usage time. Similarly, if apps icons are meaningful they can grasp users? attention easily. The paper has discussed in detail the positive and negative features of mental health apps in both platforms.