Date: 10th September 2020 Time: 03:00 pm Pakistan Standard Time; 02:00 pm Gulf Standard Time; 10:00 am Greenwich Mean Time
COMSTECH has arranged webinar to discuss light based science and technologies and its impact on electronics, medicine, and in general natural sciences including chemistry, physics, biology, astronomy, and earth sciences.
Target Audience: This webinar is open to science policy makers, academicians, scientists and general public from all the member OIC states.
Yusuf Yagci is a full professor of Chemistry at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. He received his Ph.D. (1979) degree from Liverpool University (UK). He joined Istanbul Technical University in 1980 where he continued all his academic activities till now. He has published over 600 original research papers and 48 book chapters, and is the inventor and co-inventor of 10 patents. He is the recipient of several awards including The Society of Polymer Science, Japan (SPSJ) International Award (2008), OIC Ministerial COMSTEC International Award (2010), OIC Science & Technology Award (2017), and Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (2017), Belgian Polymer Group International Award (2018), Japan Photopolymer Science and Technology Award (2018), Alexander von Humboldt Research Award (2018).
Global Coordinator International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications Executive Director, Malaysian Biotechnology Information Centre
Date: 24th August 2020 Time: 03:00 pm Pakistan Standard Time; 02:00 pm Gulf Standard Time; 10:00 am Greenwich Mean Time
COMSTECH has arranged webinar to discuss impact of democratising science for science and society. Speaker will also sensitise the audience on principles and tools used for science communication.
Target Audience: This webinar is open to science policy makers, academicians, scientists and general public from all the member OIC states.
COMSTECH has arranged webinar to discuss significance of providing science based advice to the governments. Speaker will also touch upon examples of COVID-19 response adopted by the governments in light of scientific advice.
Abstract of talk: The incident of COVID19 pandemic is a good example of how science would provide sound advice to governments. This would entail the role of the scientific community in giving a narrative of the cause and origin of the pandemic right to detailing the steps that need to be taken to mitigate this gargantuan problem. Being a multi sectoral and multi disciplinary issue, it calls on the whole spectrum of scientific discipline to be involved, namely from the natural sciences to the social sciences and humanities. While governments scramble to find the best economic package and health well-being of the affected countries, the single biggest cause which should not be neglected would be environmental in nature, i.e. the root cause of the zoonotic disease is destruction of wildlife habitat.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has brought a state of emergency worldwide. This pandemic has affected underdeveloped and developing countries due to lower resources in diagnostic and healthcare sectors. The first case of SARS-CoV-2 virus in Pakistan was confirmed on 26th of February 2020. As of 8th July 2020, there have been about 237,489 confirmed cases with 140,965 recoveries and 4,922 deaths in the country.
The current reference test for the diagnosis of active infection by SARS-CoV-2 is a real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assay. The need for increasing levels of testing for COVID-19 has been identified by both the World Health Organization (WHO) and by the UK government. In this context, COMSTECH, in collaboration with the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences, University of Karachi is organizing a workshop on the diagnostic workflow of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
The workshop is designed to address the interest of scientists and research scholars from different fields of biological sciences including Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Biotechnology.
WORKSHOP CONTENT
The program includes a series of online lectures and hands-on sessions on the following topics;
Sample collection from suspected patients by oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs
Viral RNA extraction from the collected samples
Synthesis of complementary DNA (cDNA) and amplification of target sequences of the viral genome using real-time polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) amplification
rRT-PCR data interpretation
VENUE
Zoom Meeting
WORKSHOP PROGRAM (Pakistan Standard Time)
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
12:00-12:05 Inauguration Ceremony
12:05-12:10 Recitation of the Holy Quran
12:10-12:20 Welcome Address by Prof. Dr. M. Iqbal Choudhary
12:20-13:30 Lecture 1 entitled, “Selection and collection of appropriate clinical specimen for molecular diagnostic of viral infection”
13:30-14:30 Practical Session (Sample Collection, and Virus RNA Extraction)
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
12:00-13:00 Lecture 2 entitled, “Current Molecular Diagnostic Assays for SARS-CoV-2 and its importance”
13:00-14:30 Practical Session 2 (RT PCR)
Thursday, August 20, 2020
12:00-13:00 Lecture 3 entitled, “RNA extraction and PCR technicalities for accurate diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2”
13:00-14:30 Practical Session 3 (Interpretation)
14:30-14:45 Closing Ceremony
REGISTRATION PROCESS
Please download the registration form. Kindly fill the form and submit it to the undersigned before August 14, 2020. Registered participants will receive e-certificate
Founding Director, Institute for Global Health & Development, the Aga Khan University, South-Central Asia, East Africa & United Kingdom
Chair in Global Child Health & Policy, Centre for Global Child Health, The Hospital for Sick Children & University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Date: 13th August 2020
Time: 06:00 pm Pakistan Standard Time; 05:00 pm Gulf Standard Time;
01:00 pm Greenwich Mean Time: 09:00 am US/Canada EDT
COMSTECH has arranged webinar to discuss diversity of response of OIC Member states towards Covid-19. Speaker will also touch upon implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions in wake of COVID-19. Role and impact of governance mechanisms towards Covid-19 will also be elaborated. This webinar is open to physicians, academicians, scientists and general public from all the member OIC states.
Jointly organized by OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (COMSTECH), International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), Sindh Innovation, Research, and Education Network (SIREN) Venue: COMSTECH Secretariat, Islamabad
September 9, 2020, Time: 17:00PM-19:00PM
Introduction of Event
Research and innovation are the keys for introducing high-technology products in the market, which has a direct link to the global transformation of economies. These innovative products are required to be legally protected in the form of intellectual property at the national and international levels to allow financial benefits to inventors and the country. It will also facilitate reinvestment in the technological development. Intellectual property, i.e., patents, trademarks, copyrights, has gained enormous importance in the knowledge-based economies. Patent protection is usually essential in the life cycle of technology development, but it is highly relevant to the research and development stage of the technology development process. Patent protection of an invention in several different countries gives rights to inventors to use their patent-protected invention freely in those countries during the life of a patent, which is usually 20 years from the date of filing. A patent also provides financial opportunities to inventors and their institutions through licensing to third parties.
Many countries do not recognize the significance of patents. OIC countries with a total population of 1.8 billion have only 6195 US patents, i.e., one patent per 290,000. On the other hand, the USA has one patent per 116 populations. Developing economies need to focus much to link their IP with their growing economy. The best examples of economies rising because of IP are China, Japan, and South Korea.
This certificate course is specially designed for scientists and engineers from OIC member countries, providing them the opportunity to gain a detailed insight into various aspects of an IP strategy, management, and commercialization. Course will be delivered by one of leading scientists and internationally renowned IP expert of USA.
Distinguished Speaker’s Profile:
Prof. Dr. Sarfaraz K. Niazi, FRSB, FPAMS, FACB, SI, Adjunct Professor, The University of Illinois and University of Houston Visiting Professor, H. E. J. Research Institute of Chemistry, and NUST Patent Law Practitioner, US Patent & Trademark Office, USA Email: niazi3@uic.edu; Tel: +1-312-297-0000
Professor Dr. Sarfaraz K. Niazi, FRSB, FPAMS, FACB, SI, is a patent law practitioner in the US, an entrepreneur, a teacher and researcher. He himself owns more than 200 US patents, authored over 100 research papers and 60+ major technology books. He is also serving as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois, College of Pharmacy, Ad Hoc faculty at the University of Houston, Texas, the H. E. J. Research Institute of Chemistry (ICCBS), Karachi, and the National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad. He has also served as a Foreign Professor at the H. E. J. Research Institute of Chemistry, Karachi.
He serves on the editorial board of several journals and a fellow of Royal Society, Pakistan Academy of Medical Sciences and American Society of Clinical Biochemistry. In 2013, he received one of the highest civilian awards, Star of Distinction (Sitara-e-Imtiaz) in Engineering, from the Pakistani President. He has hosted a radio show at Voice of America (US State Department) every week for more than seven years, with the audience into billions.
Professor Niazi has been helping the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan in developing US IP for the Pakistani scientists for more than 15 years.
Procedure to join:
Interested candidates are required to fill the online registration form and submit by the deadline (September 4, 2020). Zoom link for the training will be placed on the website soon.
Innovation in Entrepreneurship Education – Using Experiential Learning to Connect Theory and Practice
Organized by COMSTECH Secretariat, Islamabad-Pakistan Venue: COMSTECH via Zoom Meetings September 30, 2020 – 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm PST
Please submit the online registration form up to September 30, 2020, by 2pm (GMT +5).. Registered participants will receive e-certificates.
Key Speaker M. Nauman Farooqi, Ph.D. Dean of Business & Social Sciences Professor of Finance & Entrepreneurship Ron Joyce Center for Business Studies Mount Allison University Sackville, NB, Canada
There is a growing demand for educational institutions to evaluate and recognize the importance of learning outside the university setting. The objective of this session is to share the instructor and student learning experience of the use of experiential learning pedagogy in an entrepreneurship course using Practical Organization Behavior Education (PROBE) model. The PROBE model, which was originally developed to teach organization behavior, has been modified and extended to effectively teach various business courses. However, the use of PROBE in an entrepreneurship course is innovative and as such needs to be shared with the learning community.
Objectives
Introduce the main features of the experiential learning process,
Share the application of this methodology for an entrepreneurship course
Promote the use of the experiential methodology in entrepreneurship and other courses
Share and benefit from the feedback received from the students
Workshop Activities
The session will begin with an introduction to the topic and details of the initiative.
Viewing of video feedback from students.
Interactive exercise
Group discussion and feedback.
Target Audience
University/College faculty
Instructional and Curriculum Developers
Researchers
Policy Makers and Government Officials
Registration Process for Participants from OIC Member States
Please submit the online registration form up to September 30, 2020, by 2pm (GMT +5).. Registered participants will receive e-certificates.
This is for the information that online hands-on training workshop entitled “Developmental Psychoanalysis” will be conducted by Dr. Alexandra M. Harrison (Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Core Faculty of the Infant-Parent Mental Health Post Graduate Certificate Program at University of Massachusetts Boston).
The workshop will be organized by Department of Psychology, University of Karachi and Boston Psychoanalytic Society Et Institute (BPSI) Massachusetts, USAin collaboration with Virtual Education Project Pakistan (VEPP) as per following schedule:
Dates: August 08 to September 05, 2020
Days: Every Saturday (except August 29, 2020)
Time: 04:00 PM to 05:30 PM
Registration fee: Free
Available Seats: 100
Registration last date: August 06, 2020
Kindly register online for the course using below website, which is mandatory:
All registered participants can attend this online workshop through ZOOM video conferencing software (connection details will be shared through email to the shortlisted participants).
Note: Successful participants will receive a digital certificate upon completion of the workshop.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
Individuals with Master in any field of Psychology are invited to attend this informative workshop
Cyber world and physical world are being connected closer through a network of interrelated elements, such as sensors and actuators, robots, and other computing devices. They are inspiring increasing number of beneficial applications in dependable sectors such as aviation, transportation, aerospace, healthcare. In requirements engineer’s viewpoint, the environment, the specification and the requirements are no longer independent, they become three integral concerns of a system. Such systems face an open and continuously changing environment which poses challenges for requirement engineering. One of the challenges is that the trust assumptions about the environment are no longer fixed after deriving the specification and deployment. Environment must be treated as the first-class runtime concern.
To deal with this concern, the abstraction of the environment should model the dynamic interactions. Furthermore, the interactive elements in the environment of the systems are interrelated and these relationships cannot be neglected when deriving the specification of the dynamics especially to satisfy non-functional requirements such as timing, safety, security and privacy, etc.
This tutorial will consist of four parts: (1) the requirements engineering, the principles and the representative approaches; (2) the problem frames approach; (3) the environment modelling based approach; and (4) the environment related non-functionalities. I will deliver this tutorial with a few supporting tools that assist the modelling and verification of the system specification, demonstrated with working examples in sufficient details.
After the tutorial, participants will be able to know the basic principles of requirements engineering as well as the essence of environment modeling. Participants will also be able to work on the environment modelling requirements engineering for their own projects, with some hands-on experience and a good knowledge of some tool support.
Resource Person
Presenter: Zhi Jin, Peking University, China
Prof. Zhi Jin is Professor in Software Engineering at Peking University, China. Her work is concerned with requirements engineering and knowledge-based software engineering. She is co-author of four books and author/co-author over 150 journal/conference publications. She serves for IEEE RE 2016 as General Chair, IEEE Congress of Services as PC co-Chair in Chief, and is frequently serve for ICSE, FSE, etc as for Program Committee Member. She is executive editor-in-chief of Chinese Journal of Software (2013-), Associate Editor of IEEE TSE (2018- ), Associate Editor of IEEE TR (2019- ), and serves in the Editorial Board of JCST (2010- ), REJ (2014- ), and ESEM (2020- ).
