Determining the Occupational Health and Safety of Workers in The Food Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan

Background: For organizations, conducting work in a safe environment has become mandatory under the provisions and guidelines provided by international and local laws. Occupational health and safety (OHS) standards have become a requisite in almost every industry these days; however, many organizations in developing countries are negligent at adhering to the safety measures, and there is also an absence of proper monitoring. Objective: Our objective was to determine the occupational health and safety standards that are prevailing in the food manufacturing sector of Pakistan. For this, we approached several food manufacturing companies and conducted interviews with quality assurance managers and health and safety executives to evaluate and analyze the workplace conditions to understand their OHS practices. Methods: We conducted 7 interviews with quality assurance managers in the food manufacturing and services companies of Pakistan. The interview guide was used for eliciting responses and a coding method was used to arrive at the themes of the data gathered. Results: The interviews conducted with quality assurance managers and those working to ensure that safety measures are practiced in their company, showed that the export-oriented food manufacturing companies in Pakistan are following OHS standards, as it has become a necessity, with numerous benefits such as ensuring worker safety, maintaining company reputation. However, the extent to which these measures are implemented and strictly followed varies, as there are certain issues that arise when companies try to follow and implement OHS practices The problems vary from company to company however, most of them relate to worker adaptability, costs, and training needs.  OHS situation in local firms is concerning. Most of them do not have HSE officers, not the concept of toolbox talk, no preventive and safety measures.  These poor practices make the situation unsafe, which lead to fatalities Conclusion: By establishing a national framework for policies and legislations as per the conventions of ILO for a better workplace environment along with proper law enforcement improvement in occupational health and safety domain can be achieved.      

Electrostatic and Electromagnetic Solitons Interaction in Plasmas

We investigate the head-on and overtaking collision of two, two-sided double and two-sided triple solitons, in electrostatic and electromagnetic plasmas in this thesis. We considered quasi-elastic head-on collision between two oppositely propagating dust ion acoustic (DIA) solitary waves, in a nonmagnetized plasma composed of adiabatic ions, stationary dust charged concentration and inertialess kappa distributed electrons. We linearly analyse the DIA waves and derive the relation. We examined the head-on collision between two oblique opposite travelling DIA solitons in collisionless magnetized plasmas. To deduced the two sided Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) equations, their corresponding trajectories and phase shifts for unmagnetized and magnetized plasmas the the extended Poincar´e-Lighthill-Kuo (PLK) method has been used. For a critical case, we derived modified Korteweg–de Vries (mKdV) equations, trajectories and phase shifts for a negative dust charged concentration. We numerically analyse the results. By using two fluid model composed of warm electrons and cold ions we considered the interaction between two magnetoacoustic solitons. The dispersion effects appears through electron skin depth. The KdV equations and phase shifts has been derived for the two oppositely moving magnetoacoustic solitons. The head-on and overtaking collision between two, two-sided double and two-sided triple magnetoacoustic oppositely moving solitons has been reported in electron-positron plasmas. For the overtaking collision the Hirota bilinear method has been employed to derived the collision of multiple solitons. The KdV equations and phase shifts due to both collision are derived. It is found that magnetoacoustic compressive solitons are formed. The interaction of kinetic Alfv´en (KA) solitons in electron-ion low β plasma with kappa distributed electron has been examined. For the collision at an angle of 180◦, two sided KdV equations and their corresponding phase shifts has been derived under the condition of secularity. We further investigated the interaction of four and six KA solitons, it is observed that sub-Alfv´enic compressive solitons are exist.