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- ).
On the Occasion of World Hepatitis Day, COMSTECH has arranged web based seminar to discuss diagnosis and prophylaxis of Hepatitis B & C. Discussion will also be carried out on targets for the elimination of Hepatitis B & C by 2030. The speaker would highlight the discovery of both HBV and HCV and the prospects of global elimination as per WHO’s vision of 2030 elimination target. This webinar is open to health ministry officials, physicians, academicians, scientists, public health officials and general public from all the member OIC states.
The healthcare industry is developing rapidly with large volumes of data and increasing challenges in cost and patient outcomes. Artificial Intelligence (AI) with its wide applications in the healthcare systems for e.g. internet of things (IoT) for healthcare, gathering of data for AI applications, Intelligent health platform, intelligent hospital management, diagnostic and predictive systems, health care programming paradigms and software architecture, smart medical devices, and security & privacy for medical health care. The developed countries are already reaping the benefits of AI by integrating it into their healthcare systems. However, in low resource settings, its applications are very limited. In such settings, AI can play a tremendous role in improving the efficiency of healthcare systems.
Realizing the importance of AI in the healthcare systems, COMSTECH has planned a three-day workshop focusing on the subject in November 2020.
Venue:
The workshop will be held at the COMSTECH headquarters in one of the most modern and scenic capital cities of the world, Islamabad. The city was purpose-built as the capital of 6th largest globally and 2nd most populous (in OIC) country Pakistan in the year 1966. Pakistan, according to the Forbes magazine, is a hidden treasure for tourists. with rich cultural diversity, ancient history, diverse landscape, cuisines, modern cities, and locally produced items
Objectives of the Workshop:
The objective of this International Workshop on “Artificial Intelligence in Health Care” is to bring together the researchers, industrials partners, and practitioners interested in the specification, design, and development of AI to cultivate smart healthcare systems that will improve personal healthcare in a better way.
Key Contents:
The workshop will cover the following topics:
Intelligent Hospital Management
Health Software Architecture, Framework, Design & Engineering
Internet of things for healthcare
Intelligent technologies for healthcare (smart homes, cloud-based, etc.)
Programming paradigms and tools for health applications
Automated Diagnosis and Prediction
Data discovery
Workshop Organizing Committee:
Patron:
Prof. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman (FRS., N.I., H.I., S.I., T.I.) Chairman Prime Minister Task Force on Information Technology
Chair:
Prof. Dr. Iqbal Chaudhary (H.I., S.I., T.I.) Coordinator General COMSTECH/Director ICCBS/ Distinguished National Professor
Co-Chair:
Prof. Dr. Shoab A. Khan FOUNDER CARE, Islamabad
Technical Focal Person:
Dr. Shafaat A. Bazaz Vice Chancellor, Sir Syed CASE Institute of Technology, Islamabad
2. Prof Amir Hussain Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland, UK Founding Head of the Data Science and Cyber Analytics (DSCA) Research Group Founding Head of the Cognitive Big Data and Cybersecurity (CogBiD) Research Lab Profile of the speaker is available here
3. Dr. Atif Mashkoor Senior Researcher, LIT Secure and Correct Systems LAB Institute for Software Systems Engineering, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria Profile of the speaker is available here
4. Dr. Usman Akram Associate Head of Department, College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
5. Dr. Ahmad Raza Shahid Assistant Professor COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan
6. Dr. Muhammad Salman Khan Assistant Professor, University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, Pakistan
7. Dr. Sadia Shakeel Assistant Professor, Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
Healthcare professionals, students, researchers, young entrepreneurs and policymakers from the OIC countries are encouraged to apply.
Travel & Local Hospitality:
COMSTECH will arrange complete local hospitality, internal transportation, gala dinner and sightseeing visits for all registered participants. Travel support will be provided to the speakers/resource persons only. Participants are expected to get their travel funding from their parent organizations/country of origin.
Step 2: Read instructions in the application form carefully and submit a properly filled form along with your CV. Foreign participants must submit a scanned copy of the first three pages of their passport along with the application form.
Step 3: Selected candidates will be notified through email; hence, applicants are required to check their emails regularly.
The workshop Comprises of the four following major activities
Poster Presentations
Technical Talks (Plenary Sessions)
Training Program (Python etc.)
Exhibition of Products/Services in AI for Health
Participations in above three categories are invited to show case your contribution in the above mentioned or relevant fields of Research and Development. The workshop would be a good forum to get your research appreciated
Poster Presentations
To participate in poster presentation activity or to showcase your research work and projects, please email your four page draft at muhammad.saleem@case.edu.pk according to the guidelines for poster presentations and poster templates. The best three posters will be awarded after the judgment procedure. The last date for the submission of posters is October 25th 2020.
The event will be open for all participants for technical talks, discussions, presentations etc.
3. Training Program
To participate as trainer or trainee, please email your Expression of Interest and theme of training (as trainer, maximum one page) latest by October 25th 2020 at adeel@case.edu.pk
4. Exhibition of Products/Services in AI for Health
Young entrepreneurs are encouraged to display their research products/services in field of AI applications for healthcare industry. Please email your Expression of Interest and details of your product/services latest by October 25th 2020 at haris@comstech.org.
Workshop Coordinators:
Muhammad Haris Akram Programme Manager, COMSTECH Tel: +92-51-9220681-3 Fax: +92-51-9205264, +92-51-9220265 Email: haris@comstech.org
Dr. Saman Riaz Assistant Professor Sir Syed CASE Institute of Technology, Pakistan Email: saman.riaz@case.edu.pk
