Global Journal of Multidisciplinary and Applied Sciences

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Public Health Challenges in Rapidly Urbanizing Societies

Hamza S. Qureshi — 2023-03-31

Rapid urbanization is reshaping disease patterns, risk exposures, and health-system demands across low- and middle-income countries. Cities concentrate opportunity—jobs, services, innovation—but also intensify hazards such as air pollution, road traffic injuries, heat stress, infectious disease transmission, and unequal access to safe housing, water, and sanitation. Evidence shows that a large share of urban growth occurs in informal settlements, while most urban residents are exposed to unhealthy air, compounding cardiopulmonary risk and widening inequities. Urban public health challenges are therefore not “medical” problems alone: they emerge from interacting systems—transport, housing, labor markets, climate, governance, and social protection. This article synthesizes multidisciplinary perspectives—epidemiology, urban planning, environmental science, behavioral science, economics, and policy—into a practical framework for diagnosing urban health risks and designing integrated interventions, with attention to rapidly growing South Asian cities including Pakistan’s metropolitan regions.

Sustainable Business Models and Corporate Innovation in the Era of Green Economics

Muhammad Bilal — 2023-03-31

Green economics is reshaping how firms create value, compete, and remain legitimate in the eyes of regulators, investors, and society. This article synthesizes contemporary thinking on sustainable business models—such as circular economy, product-service systems, and inclusive value chains—and explains how corporate innovation (technological, organizational, and financial) enables firms to translate environmental constraints into strategic advantage. We develop a practical framework linking (i) sustainability-driven value propositions, (ii) decarbonized and resource-efficient operations, (iii) credible measurement and disclosure, and (iv) governance systems that align incentives with long-term resilience. The discussion highlights the growing importance of standardized sustainability reporting (e.g., IFRS S1/S2 and CSRD/ESRS), transition planning, and science-based targets as market infrastructure that reduces information asymmetry and accelerates diffusion of green innovation. The article concludes with actionable outlines for managers and policymakers, emphasizing that sustainability becomes economically durable when it is embedded in unit economics, risk management, and innovation portfolios rather than treated as reputational “CSR.”

Behavioral Economics and Consumer Decision-Making in the Digital Marketplace

Hassan M. Farooq — 2023-03-31

Digital marketplaces have transformed consumer decision-making by embedding choices within high-speed, information-rich, and algorithmically curated environments. Behavioral economics provides a powerful lens to explain why consumers deviate from fully rational models—especially when facing choice overload, time pressure, persuasive interface design, and personalized recommendations. This article synthesizes core behavioral mechanisms—heuristics, biases, reference dependence, present bias, mental accounting, and social influence—and maps them to common digital marketplace features such as default settings, scarcity cues, pricing frames, subscription models, targeted advertising, and “one-click” purchasing. It also highlights emerging concerns including dark patterns, fairness in personalization, privacy trade-offs, and welfare impacts of platform nudges. The paper concludes with research directions and policy implications for designing choice architectures that improve consumer welfare while maintaining innovation and competition in digital commerce.

Ethical and Governance Challenges in Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies

Ayesha Riaz — 2023-03-31

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies (e.g., Internet of Things, biometrics, and autonomous systems) are rapidly reshaping decision-making in government, industry, and everyday life. Alongside benefits, these systems introduce ethical risks—privacy intrusion, bias and discrimination, opacity, safety failures, labor displacement, and concentration of power—while exposing governance gaps in accountability, auditing, and enforcement. This paper synthesizes major ethical challenges across the AI lifecycle (data, model design, deployment, monitoring) and proposes a practical governance framing grounded in internationally recognized standards and policy instruments. We argue that effective governance requires risk-based regulation, organizational controls (impact assessments, audits, incident reporting), and socio-technical safeguards (human oversight, contestability, and transparency). We conclude with an implementation-oriented roadmap that integrates AI risk management practices with rights-based ethics to support trustworthy, socially beneficial innovation.

Precision Agriculture and Biotechnology: Enhancing Crop Productivity through Smart Technologies

Muhammad Haris Zafar — 2023-03-31

Precision agriculture (PA) and modern biotechnology are reshaping crop production by turning farming into a data-driven, site-specific, and climate-aware system. PA integrates remote sensing, IoT sensors, variable-rate application, robotics, and decision-support analytics to optimize inputs (seed, fertilizer, water, pesticides) according to within-field variability, reducing waste while stabilizing yields. In parallel, biotechnology—especially genome editing—accelerates genetic gains by enabling targeted improvements in stress tolerance, disease resistance, and quality traits. This article synthesizes how these two domains converge into “smart breeding + smart farming,” where improved varieties are paired with real-time management to close yield gaps under climate and resource constraints. A Pakistan-relevant lens highlights opportunities (water productivity, heat resilience, pest management, smallholder services) and governance requirements (data rights, biosafety, validation, extension capacity, and equitable access). The proposed implementation roadmap emphasizes pilots, agronomic validation, responsible data governance, and bundled service delivery models that translate innovation into measurable productivity and sustainability outcomes.

Cross-Disciplinary Research Frameworks for Addressing Global Environmental and Social Challenges

Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad — 2023-03-31

Global environmental degradation and persistent social inequalities represent deeply interconnected challenges that transcend the boundaries of single academic disciplines. Climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, public health crises, and socioeconomic disparities interact in complex ways, demanding integrated analytical and policy responses. This article examines cross-disciplinary research frameworks as essential tools for addressing these intertwined global challenges. Drawing on systems thinking, sustainability science, political economy, and social–ecological resilience theory, the paper outlines how collaborative research across natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, and humanities can generate more holistic knowledge and actionable solutions. The study emphasizes methodological integration, stakeholder engagement, and policy relevance as core components of effective cross-disciplinary frameworks. It argues that such approaches are particularly critical for developing countries like Pakistan, where environmental stressors and social vulnerabilities overlap. The article concludes that institutional support, capacity building, and inclusive governance are necessary to translate cross-disciplinary research into sustainable and equitable outcomes.