PREVALENCE OF DEPRESSIVE FEELINGS AND ITS ASSOCIATED RISK FACTORS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA

In nowadays competitive environment, students face challenges and intense pressure both from social and university lives, which is perceived stressful, and it ultimately develop feelings of depression. Keeping this in view, the current study aims to know prevalence of depressive feelings and its associated risk factors among Malaysian university students. Utilizing a cross-sectional design, data were collected by an online-self-reported- questionnaire from 210 students. Demographic data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, while linkages between depression and its risk-factors were determined by multinomial-logistic regression analysis. Results show that depressive symptoms were moderately elevated among 19-to-22 years old students, female students, unmarried, having past-trauma and financially poor status. Depressive symptoms had impeded academic life of students and academic performance. This study recommends that the menace of depression should be dealt collectively by parents, teachers, and university administration by providing a conducive environment to students, which will prevent students from detrimental impacts of depression.

CLEAN GREEN PAKISTAN MOVEMENT: A WAY TO COMBAT THE CHALLENGES OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change has brought some challenges for the governments in the world. Different governments in the world have adopted different policies to face the challenges of climate change. Pakistan is one of most affected nations by climate change and it has launched a complete program in the clean and green Pakistan movement to counter these challenges. This is a borderless issue and needed collective response along with the specific one to combat these challenges. It is the matter of fact that Pakistan is a developing nation with limited resources to combat the huge challenges of climate change. Imran Khan as head of his political party PTI introduced programs like the Billion tree tsunami in KPK in 2014 and later on won the general elections of 2018 launched a ten billion tree tsunami campaign and soon after made it part of the Clean Green Pakistan Movement. This study focuses on the climate change effects on Pakistan and examines the Clean Green Pakistan movement to counter the challenges of climate change in Pakistan.

A COMPARISON OF PARAMETRIC MORTALITY MODELS TO GRADUATE URBAN AND RURAL MORTALITY

This study examine twenty-nine parametric mortality models and assess their suitability for graduating mortality rates of urban and rural areas in Pakistan. Grouped age specific mortality rates of rural and urban populations for the year 2019 are used. The data is collected from the website of National Institute of Population Studies which conduct Maternal Mortality Survey in Pakistan on regular basis. The parametric mortality models were applied to rural and urban mortality data. We used R software to estimate the model’s parameters and assess their suitability for urban and rural populations. The suitability of these models was assessed by using 3 different loss functions. Our analyses found that the fourth type of Heligman-Polard’s model with loss function 3 provides reliable results for graduating the mortality of rural population while second type of Carriere model with loss function 3 produce best results for graduating the urban mortality of Pakistan. Based on two models, mortality rates of urban and rural population have been graduated over age range 0-85. We suggest the use the graduated mortality rates of urban and rural areas for pricing life insurance products in rural and urban areas respectively. In addition, graduated mortality rates are also suggested for use in calculation of life insurance liabilities.

EXPLORING RIGHT TO INFORMATION AND GOOD GOVERNANCE IN PAKISTAN: A SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

The study attempted to analyze the role of right to information in ensuring good governance in Pakistan. The study objectives were to investigate the experiences of public information officers and civil society actors regarding the right to information contribution to good governance and to analyze the challenges in the implementation of right to information law. For the selection of sampling size, purposive sampling was used and data were collected from 11 ministries public information officers and 3 civil society actors through in depth interviews in Islamabad, Pakistan. Being qualitative study, data were analyzed by using thematic analyses. Jurgen Habermas theory of ‘Public Sphere” was used to throw light on main theme of the study. The findings indicated that right to information is an effective tool in promoting good governance along with all its features like, accountability, transparency, mutual trust between the government and general public, common man facilitation, rule of law and corruption elimination. Study concluded that right to information would be an effective tool in promoting the good governance only when hurdles that prevent it from its true implementation were removed.

AN INVESTIGATION ON ROLE OF GREEN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF ORGANIZATIONS

Sustainability is the main problem of organizations. Due to environmental uncertainty and human negligence lot of issues related with environment are increasing day by day. That is why implementing green policies and initiating green activities are crucial for organizations to attain competitive advantage and sustainability. The purpose of the existing study was to determine direct link between GHRM and sustainable development. For this drive, survey from 416 respondents was conducted. Those organizations that have awareness of environmental issues and have implemented and initiated green objectives were chosen for this study. The non-probability convenience sampling was used for selecting sample size. SPSS 25 was used. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability test were conducted the findings show the scales adopted are found valid and reliable. Further regression was run to test hypotheses; it shows that all predictor have impact upon criterion variables. Only green training has insignificant effect on environment sustainability while green RSL, GT and green rewards also does not have impact on social performance.

IMPROVEMENTS IN ONLINE EDUCATION SYSTEM OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND ROLE OF MEDIA: A FOLLOW UP STUDY

The ongoing COVID-19-pandemic has particularly affected the education sector. Globally all educational intuitions have been shifted towards the online education system. Online system was perceived challenging due to different barriers and issues. For this reason, different research studies were conducted on online education system. However, it is not known whether any improvements have occurred in the online education system? Keeping this in mind, this study has examined improvements in online education system by looking at role of media. For this purpose, a longitudinal design was selected, and data were collected through the online-self-administeredquestionnaire from 707 students studying in a public sector university of Pakistan. Data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. Results showed that with passage of time improvements had occurred in online educational system of COVID-19. This study recommends that Government should continuously work on further improving online education system towards sustainability.

CAPTURING THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS: A CASE STUDY OF PAKISTAN

The spread of COVID-19 has obstructed construction projects worldwide owing to disruptions in supply chain, restriction on the combine work and legislative enforcements. Construction projects from developing economies are more susceptible to these challenges. The aim of this research is to identify factors caused by COVID-19 impacting progress of construction projects and review tools to lessen its negative impact. Multistep methodology is adopted using semi-structured interviews with construction experts to identify factors affected the progress during COVID-19; and data collection from professionals to quantify the significance of each identified factor; Cronbach’s alpha for reliability and multiple regression to assess the effect of COVID-19 on progress of construction projects. The findings show that COVID-19 has left severe issues at the operational and financial levels. The remedies use to correct these issues will help policymakers from construction industry to improve existing strategic plans and develop new policies to manage the issues caused by COVID-19.

EXAMINATION OF DIGITAL AND NON-DIGITAL FACTORS ON PERCEPTION OF MOBILE BANKING CUSTOMERS: A CASE OF DEVELOPING ECONOMY

The purpose of current study is to examine perception of mobile banking customers about digital and non-digital factors in Pakistan. The population of current study consists of current and future users of mobile baking in Pakistan. In this study, mobile banking usage is considered as dependent variable and seven variables (5-digital & 2-non-digital) have been selected as independent variables. The SPSS version 16 was used to analyse and report the data collected through an administrative questionnaire. The results of current study indicated that non-digital factors (Need of service and service quality) has insignificant relationship with perception of the mobile banking customers. Also, results indicated a significant relationship between digital factors (Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, relative advantage, trust and security) with perception of mobile banking customers. As a practical implication of the study, current study facilitate banking sector to facilitate their customers and retain their customer base. Banks used these results to identify the social norms of their banking customers and link them with mobile banking technology to facilitate them.

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 OUTBREAK ON CHINA SECTORAL INDICES IN SHORT AND MEDIUM RUN

The novel coronavirus COVID-19 has severe consequences for countries around the globe. The purpose of this study to find out the impact of COVID-19 on China’s sectoral indices in the short and medium run. This research investigates the impact of COVID-19 on stock exchange index, exchange rates, money lending, and oil prices in the Chinese economy in the short and medium run by using secondary data of different sectoral sectors. The outcomes show that COVID-19 has strongly influenced these sectors. The Shanghai stock exchange is showing a decline in transactions due to this pandemic in the short run. But in the medium run, the outcome shown that Shanghai stock exchange has upward trend. The pandemic has reduced exchange rate of Chinese RMB to US dollar in short-run, but in medium run, Chinese RMB has gained appreciation against US dollar. The money lending for medium enterprises is showing downward curve. Result shows that money lending rate has reduced from 3.25% to 3.10% in the short-run and 2.95% in medium run. Overall, pandemic has had significant influence on the Chinese economy and development.