Predictors of quitting smoking behavior: evidence from Pakistan.

This study attempts to identify factors that significantly encourage the cessation of smoking in the context of Pakistan. The study distributes a modified questionnaire among 421 respondents (current as well as former smokers) in the capital city of Pakistan, Islamabad. The binary regression method was employed to data for analyzing predictors of making quit attempts and successful smoking cessation. The result indicates that respondents having strong intentions to quit, high socioeconomic status, low nicotine dependency, and past quit attempts, and those having no-smoking friends, are more likely to quit cigarette smoking successfully. On the other hand, factors like social pressure to quit smoking, religious information against smoking, intention to quit smoking, and public regulation on smoking are more likely to encourage smokers to make quit attempts. The study calls for community and school-wide smoking cessation campaigns involving officials, peers and parents, religious leaders, and other influential individuals to inform people about the dangers of smoking. In addition, religious leaders should be encouraged to issue rulings against smoking especially during "Friday Prayer." Furthermore, the government should pronounce more strict and comprehensive regulations on smoking by properly monitoring its implementation to encourage cessation of cigarette smoking.

Non-edible plant seeds of Acacia farnesiana as a new and effective source for biofuel production.

Currently, the energy crisis is a hot topic for researchers because we are facing serious problems due to overpopulation and natural energy sources are vanishing day-by-day. To overcome the energy crisis, biofuel production from non-edible plant seeds is the best solution for the present era. In the present study, we select the non-edible seeds of Acacia farnesiana for biofuel production from different areas of Pakistan with better oil production results. Different kinds of analytical method, like the American Standard for Testing and Materials and techniques like Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, gas chromatography, and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry, were used to evaluate the chemical compositions. The maximum oil extraction rate (23%) was produced by petroleum ether. Potassium hydroxide exhibited the best conversion result of 96% fatty acid methyl ester. The transesterification method was used for the preparation of fatty acid methyl ester (96%) using potassium hydroxide and methanol. The viscosity and density of Acacia farnesiana seed oil biodiesel was comparable to American Standard for Testing Material biodiesel standards. By using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, five fatty acids were detected comprising palmitic acid (6.85%), stearic acid (2.36%), oleic acid (12.13%), linoleic acid (46.85%), and α-linolenic acid (1.23%). This study concludes that Acacia farnesiana seed oil biodiesel could be an intriguing raw material for yielding Acacia farnesiana seed oil methyl ester as an alternative fuel source.