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Purpose: Technostress or technology-induced stress is well-known in the literature among working people. Although technology is becoming more prevalent in higher education, there is still a lack of research investigating the predictors of technostress and its impact on university students. The current study explored: (i) the mediating role of problematic internet use (PIU) in the relationship between internet usage and technostress and (ii) the moderation of personality type on the relationship between internet usage and PIU among university students in Pakistan. Methodology: For this correlational study, participants (n=165) were bachelor's and master's students from two public universities in Pakistan. A purposive sampling technique was used and SmartPLS was used for analysis. Findings: Problematic internet usage partially mediated the relationship between internet usage and technostress among university students. Conscientiousness moderated the relationship between internet usage and problematic internet use negatively whereas neuroticism moderated the relationship positively. Conclusion: The findings are an essential landmark for the consequences of problematic internet usage and the presence of technostress among students. Workshops and specialized programs are necessary to promote awareness among university students and proper counseling services to reduce the adverse effects of internet usage, problematic internet usage and technostress.

i. Purpose of the study: Due to the rapid increase of COVID-19 cases, it has become challenging for the entire world to identify and treat infected patients at existing hospitals. In order to stop the spread of COVID-19, diseased persons need to be isolated for treatment. Hence, there is an enormous necessity to identify, monitor, and isolate patients to analyze their current situation and improve diagnostic accuracy to prevent more spread and deaths. ii. Methodology: Providentially, the recent advances in Information and communications technology (ICT) like the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) bring us opportunities to win the battle against the COVID-19 crisis. The exploratory research distributes practical assistance to the researcher for the rudimentary work. In this study, the exploratory research method was executed to explore the existing literature intensively and recognize the COVID-19 affected patients’ issues or challenges. iii. Main Findings: A new approach of IoMT-based E-Health has been designed and proposed for affected patient’s treatment in real-time. IoMT based E-Health model venture a prodigious promise to treat isolated patients where it applies existing technologies to increase quality control and access to patient healthcare centers in this COVID-19 pandemic effectively. iv. Applications of this study: IoMT-based E-Health involves significant components to track, identify, monitor, manage, store, and analyze patient information for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With the help of the proposed approach, existing hospitals and healthcare centers can manage many infected patients, suggest treatment, and respond quickly according to their emergency alerts. v. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study aims to identify current health systems’ challenges and design a specialized model for the IoMT based E-Health systems by focusing mainly on the challenges that surfaced during COVID-19.

The current study investigated the link between motivation and decision-making strategies of employees working on managerial positions in different organizations of Multan. Additionally, participants were compared across gender, marital status, age groups and organizational set up. The sample included 164 men and 68 women (N = 232, Mage 38.5 years). Work Preference Inventory and General Decision-Making Style Questionnaire were administered in order to measure intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and a range of decision-making styles respectively. Correlational analysis showed significant inverse association of dependent decision-making style with both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation yet only extrinsic motivation proved to be a significant predictor of dependent style in regression analysis. Results of t-test showed that men preferred rationale style women scored higher on dependent and avoidant styles of making decisions than men. Decision making ability of married employees was better than unmarried. Differences across gender and marital status were non-significant on level of motivation and its types. Private sector employees showed greater motivation than public sector employees, however both were alike in decision making except for dependent style that was preferred by public sector employees. Younger group was more intrinsically motivated while older groups were more dependent in decision making as compared with the younger group. Findings are discussed for improvement of organizational set up.

Psychological health directly affects life satisfaction especially to those women who face social and family pressure about their infertility. A wide range of research studies comparing fertile and infertile women documented that there is negative impact of infertility on subjective well-being and global life satisfaction (Abbey et al., 1991, 1992; Callan, 1987; Callan& Hennessey, 1988). The present study was aimed to investigate the impact of psychological health on life satisfaction among fertile and infertile females. Through the convenience sampling technique, a sample of 310 (N=310) fertile and infertile women was selected whose age ranged between 25 to 50 years. Demographic variables included age, employment status, level of education, duration of marital life, type of marriage and family system for both fertile and infertile females. To be included in sample, Women must have been diagnosed with infertility (primary or secondary), they must not have adopted any child, and marriage duration must be at least 2 years and must not have past history of psychiatric illness. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) was used for current psychological health and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) was used to measure life satisfaction. Data was analyzed by using SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics, Regression analysis, ANOVA and t-test were used to analyze the data. Results have shown that psychological health has impact on life satisfaction in both fertile and infertile groups of women. Furthermore, results show that level of life satisfaction and psychological health is more prevalent in educated and employed women as compared to uneducated and unemployed women. To conclude, this study will be helpful in resolving psychological problems of the infertile females. Education can increase awareness about infertility and infertile females can meet the challenges of the society and can stand with better health and emotions.

The latest challenge for the universe is Novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019). Although it is not new for the entire medical world this recent outbreak is new in humans. It started in Wuhan, China through animal to human spread but later on it was evidenced as human to human spread. On January 30, WHO declared Public health emergency around the world but did not impose trade and travel restrictions. Following China, On 19 February Iran spoke about 2 deaths due to COVID-19. Pakistan shares its border with China and Iran and has trade and travel relations with both countries. So this virus was imported through travelers and 1st case was reported on 26 February in Pakistan (Health, 2020). Until today number of cases has been outstretched up to 28,736 while 636 deaths were reported (Worldometer, 2020). All these current scenarios, call for attention to the impact of this pandemic on mental health. When large numbers of people get sick or die as a result of epidemics or pandemics, it leads to greater risks for psychosocial problems. History reminds us that SARS was the 1st hard hit of the 21st Century and researchers reported the huge psychosocial impact of SARS upon people (Sim & Chua, 2004). A study by Nickell and colleagues elaborated on this impact and contributed towards the knowledge by carrying out the study in a Canada based teaching hospital during 2003 when the outbreak was at the peak. Emotional distress, psychiatric comorbidity, huge concerns for personal and family health were reported by the participants (Nickell et al., 2004). The substantial rise in anxiety is associated with deaths, news and quarantine (Lima et al., 2020).

Study was designed to examine the relationship between well-being and environmental factors and their influence on cardiovascular disease. Cross sectional and co-relational research design were adopted. Data was collected over a span of 04 months from Multan Institute of Cardiology (MIC) and from the cardiology ward 1-A Nishtar Hospital Multan. A purposive sample of 200 cardiovascular patients was requested to provide information regarding stressful life events, perceived stress, depression, social support and cardiovascular diseases. Sample of 200 cardiovascular patients consisted of 100 males and 100 females. Independent sample t-test, ANOVA as well as PLS-SEM (structural equation modeling) was used to examine the hypothesis. Results informed about the positive impact of psychological stressors on cardiovascular diseases which was partly mediated by social support, because social support effect the way CVD patients perceives the stress full events as well as decrease the threshold of psychological stressors. It was concluded that psychological stressors (Depression, Perceived stress, Stressful life events) and low social support increases the severity of cardiovascular diseases within a short duration among cardiovascular patients. Patients with mild psychological stressors and high social support sustain a milder form of CVD disease e.g. Hypertension for longer time duration without shifting to sever form of cardiovascular diseases while on the other hand contrary happen in the case of high level of psychological stressors and lower level of social support.

International Transaction Journal of Engineering, Management, & Applied Sciences & Technologies, 11, 6, 11A06C: 1-10

This study was designed to estimate the relationship of peer victimization, psychological distress and self-esteem among teenagers. The sample consisted of 233 teenager’s age range from 11 to 20 years. Data was collected from Kot Addu and Multan District. Convenient Sampling method was used to collect the data. Illinois Bully scale developed by (Espelage, D. L. & Holt, 2001) consisted of 18 items was used to check the rate of Peer Victimization. A 20 item state Self Esteem scale developed by (Heatherton, T. F. & Polivy, 1991) was taken to check the level of self-esteem among teenagers. Another 10 item Kessler psychological Distress scale (K10) developed by (Kessler & Mroczek, 1992) was used to check the level of distress among teenagers. The results were analyzed through SPSS. The findings of the study show that peer victimization leads to psychological distress and victimized teenagers have low level of self-esteem. It was also found that rate of peer victimization is high among school going teenagers as compared to college or university. Result further exposed that there is no significance difference in peer victimization on the basis of demographic variables like age group, gender, parent’s qualification, no of siblings and family system.

Self-efficacy is the person’s complete belief on his or her abilities that he or she succeeds in a specific situation. Different activities covered by Personal growth which develop aptitudes, improve identity and boost our quality of life. The present study was intended to explore the impact of self-efficacy on personal growth among distance learners. It was deeply focused on new emerging trend of distance learning in Pakistan. Data was collected through simple random sampling from participants (males and females) aged 20-32. For the purpose of data collection two scales were used in this research i.e., Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS -II; Robitschek, Ashton, Spering, Geiger, Byers, Schotts, & Thoen, 2012) and Self Efficacy scale (Schwarzer &Jerusalem,2000). Analysis of the data revealed that there is a significant impact of self-efficacy on personal growth. No gender differences were found on personal growth Initiative and self-efficacy. The findings conclude that the present study will be fruitful in uplifting the society’s emerging trend of distance learning and to provide quality education to the door step of every member of the society.

The rapid demand of information access on internet has created the possibility of retrieving documents in multiple languages. This is even possible if majority of the people are not proficient in the internet main language. Multilingual Information Retrieval (MLIR) accepts queries in numerous languages and retrieves the results in the demanded language probe by the users. Pakistan is a country where multiple languages are spoken by the population, and Urdu is the national language used internationally. However, the people of Pakistan do not like to use their national language, or the other languages used by the people in Pakistan in the internet search engine. Based on this situation, this study is conducted to explore the needs of MLIR and the role of Roman Urdu in retrieving information on internet in Pakistan. A questionnaire-based web survey is designed and directed to the internet users through the survey link. The researcher does not specify the number of respondents but distributes the link to the people who use internet through E-mail, WhatsApp groups and Facebook. Descriptive statistics by free Online Survey web and IBM SPS statistics are used to analyze the data. Finally a total of 110 participants responded and the researcher detects majority of them use internet daily. They use the internet for educational purpose and gathering information, as well as to socialize or for entertainment. English language is identified as the popular language used for searching information. They have the ability to understand the English language, but use Roman Urdu for socialization and for retrieving information which include audio, video etc. The conclusion of the study reflects that majority of the internet users are young people who have good command of English and their needs are fulfilled by the current multilingual systems. To them, using Urdu and Urdu keyboard characters on the device are difficult. On the other hand, internet users use Roman Urdu for socialization or searching of information and are satisfied with the search results. Therefore, a new multilingual system for searching information is not crucial to them.

Cognitive styles are the thinking patterns that greatly influence our day to day activities. People may adopt specific learning styles to the way they want to act. Creativity is an important aspect and a great requirement of now a day’s organization because competition is so enhanced that it is an important aspectto be a part of market. So there is a need to explore what types of learning styles and cognitive styles will help the employees to be creative. The key variables of this study were Cognitive styles (CS), Learning styles (LS) and Employee Creativity (EC). The main purpose was to study cognitive styles as a moderator in relationship of learning styles and employee creativity; and to explore these variables further. Descriptive research design was used and data was collected from 450 employees in different sectors(public and private) through convenient sampling from banks, insurance and telecommunication sectors of Multan. Participants responded to cognitive style inventory (CS; Ancona, Kochan, Scully, Van Maanen, and Westney, 1997), Learning Style Questionnaire (LS; O Brein 1985), and Employee Creativity Questionnaire (EC; Tierney et al. in 1999)in order to study the target variables. Descriptive statistics and reliability of scales was calculated. One way ANOVA, t-test was calculated by using SPSS. To check moderation, Partial least square structural Equation modeling (smart PLS) were used. Cognitive styles had significant moderating effect on learning styles and employee creativity. Limitations and suggestions are discussed.