Analyzing the efficiency differences among basic health units in Sargodha District

Pakistan has adequate infrastructure for health services delivery at primary level. The study aims to calculate the technical efficiency of Basic Health Units (BHUs) in Sargodha by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the choice of inputs and outputs being specific to BHUs operation. DEA model results reveals that the mean technical efficiency under, Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) and Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) was 0.719 and 0.807 while the mean scale efficiency was 0.88. Study exposed that 77 % BHUs were technically inefficient under CRS while 66 % BHUs were technically inefficient under VRS modal. Overall 76% BHUs were inefficient and destructing the infrastructure. Moreover, findings evidently point to adverse inefficiency of BHUs in health services delivery. Study concluded that existing high level of inefficiency in BHUs needs institutional fascination for scaling up BHUs to meet both regional as well international targets such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and recommended such measures that may curb the waste.Basic Health Units, Technical Efficiency, Data Envelopment Analysis, Pakistan

Analyzing the Efficiency Differences among Basic Health Units in Sargodha District

Pakistan has adequate infrastructure for health services delivery at primary level. The study aims to calculate the technical efficiency of Basic Health Units (BHUs) in Sargodha by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the choice of inputs and outputs being specific to BHUs operation. DEA model results reveals that the mean technical efficiency under, Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) and Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) was 0.719 and 0.807 while the mean scale efficiency was 0.88. Study exposed that 77 % BHUs were technically inefficient under CRS while 66 % BHUs were technically inefficient under VRS modal. Overall 76% BHUs were inefficient and destructing the infrastructure. Moreover, findings evidently point to adverse inefficiency of BHUs in health services delivery. Study concluded that existing high level of inefficiency in BHUs needs institutional fascination for scaling up BHUs to meet both regional as well international targets such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and recommended such measures that may curb the waste

Automatically human action recognition (HAR) with view variation from skeleton means of adaptive transformer network

Human action recognition using skeletons has become increasingly appealing to a growing number of researchers in recent years. It is particularly challenging to recognize actions when they are captured from different angles because there are so many variations in their representations. This paper proposes an automatic strategy for determining virtual observation viewpoints that are based on learning and data driven to solve the problem of view variation throughout an act. Our VA-CNN and VA-RNN networks, which use convolutional and recurrent neural networks with long short-term memory, offer an alternative to the conventional method of reorienting skeletons according to a human-defined earlier benchmark. Using the unique view adaption module, each network first identifies the best observation perspectives and then transforms the skeletons for end-to-end detection with the main classification network based on those viewpoints. The suggested view adaptive models can provide significantly more consistent virtual viewpoints using the skeletons of different perspectives. By removing views, the models allow networks to learn action-specific properties more efficiently. Furthermore, we developed a two-stream scheme (referred to as VA-fusion) that integrates the performance of two networks to obtain an improved prediction. Random rotation of skeletal sequences is used to avoid overfitting during training and improve the reliability of view adaption models. An extensive experiment demonstrates that our proposed view adaptive networks outperform existing solutions on five challenging benchmarks.Post-print / Final draf

Analyzing the efficiency differences among basic health units in Sargodha District

Pakistan has adequate infrastructure for health services delivery at primary level. The study aims to calculate the technical efficiency of Basic Health Units (BHUs) in Sargodha by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the choice of inputs and outputs being specific to BHUs operation. DEA model results reveals that the mean technical efficiency under, Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) and Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) was 0.719 and 0.807 while the mean scale efficiency was 0.88. Study exposed that 77 % BHUs were technically inefficient under CRS while 66 % BHUs were technically inefficient under VRS modal. Overall 76% BHUs were inefficient and destructing the infrastructure. Moreover, findings evidently point to adverse inefficiency of BHUs in health services delivery. Study concluded that existing high level of inefficiency in BHUs needs institutional fascination for scaling up BHUs to meet both regional as well international targets such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and recommended such measures that may curb the waste

Results of Conservative Management of CSF Rhinorrhea in Post Traumatic Patients

Objectives:  We aimed to see the results of conservative management of CSF rhinorrhea in post-traumatic patients. Material and Methods:  An observational study was conducted on 50 patients for 3 months from 1st November 2021 to 31th Jan 2022. Patients presented to neurosurgery unit II, PINS. All patients had a history of road traffic accidents (RTA). Results:  The age range was 10 – 50 years. The mean age was 25 years. All patients were managed conservatively for one week. We advised complete bed rest to all patients for 2 weeks. Head ends of all patients were slightly inclined from 15 – 30 degrees to reduce pressure in basal cisterns. We gave acetazolamide, mannitol, antibiotics, and anti-epileptic medication to all patients. CSF rhinorrhea in our 43 (86%) patients was stopped completely. In our 5 (10%) patients, CSF rhinorrhea was cured completely after doing a lumbar puncture with drainage of CSF and with the placement of a lumbar drain at a rate of 10 ml per hour. In our 2 (4%) patients, CSF rhinorrhea was not cured. We have to do surgery either by trans cranial or endoscopic repair of CSF rhinorrhea. Conclusion:  CSF rhinorrhea is best cured by conservative management except in 4% of cases

Analyzing the efficiency differences among basic health units in Sargodha District

Pakistan has adequate infrastructure for health services delivery at primary level. The study aims to calculate the technical efficiency of Basic Health Units (BHUs) in Sargodha by using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with the choice of inputs and outputs being specific to BHUs operation. DEA model results reveals that the mean technical efficiency under, Constant Returns to Scale (CRS) and Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) was 0.719 and 0.807 while the mean scale efficiency was 0.88. Study exposed that 77 % BHUs were technically inefficient under CRS while 66 % BHUs were technically inefficient under VRS modal. Overall 76% BHUs were inefficient and destructing the infrastructure. Moreover, findings evidently point to adverse inefficiency of BHUs in health services delivery. Study concluded that existing high level of inefficiency in BHUs needs institutional fascination for scaling up BHUs to meet both regional as well international targets such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and recommended such measures that may curb the waste

Comparison of Surgical Outcomes of ventriculoperitoneal (VP) Shunt at Choudhary’s Point vs. Keen’s Point

Objectives:  The study compared the outcomes of VP shunt at Choudhary’s vs Keen’s point. Material and Methods:  A quasi-observational study was conducted on 50 patients who presented to NS-2, PINS, with the complaint of hydrocephalus. The study was conducted for 3 months from 1st November 2021 to 31th Jan 2022. Results:  Mean age was 40 years. In 25 (50%) patients, VP shunts were done through Choudhary’s point while in 25 (50%) patients VP shunts were done through Keen’s point. All patients were evaluated on day 3rd POD, 7th POD, 15th POD, and 90th POD.  All patients were improved on 3rd POD. On the 7th POD, 15 (30%) patients deteriorated and showed signs of raised ICP. In these patients, the upper end of VP shunts is again revised due to blockage. On 15th POD, the upper end of VP shunts was blocked in 3 (6%) patients and their upper end was revised. On 90th POD, 2 (4%) patients were presented with upper-end blockage, and again shunt revision was done.  VP shunts in all these patients were done through keen’s point approach. Blockage of the lower end of VP shunt occurred in 10% of patients in which 8% were operated through Keen’s point approach while resting 2% of patients were operated through Choudhary’s point approach.  Conclusion:  VP shunts through Choudhary’s point approach yield good results as compared to Keen's point approach. This site is described by professor Muhammad Anwar Choudhary, as more convenient for insertion of VP shunt

Bat Borne Diseases

A bat-borne disease is any infectious disease whose primary reservoir is any species of bat. It is not a coincidence that some of the deadly viral disease outbreaks in recent years like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory disorder (MERS), Ebola, Marburg and the new 2019-nCoV virus are speculated to be originated in bats. Rarely some bacterial and fungal diseases are also related to certain species of bats. Such illnesses are part of Zoonosis, which refers to the human diseases of animal origin. In this review we highlight some of the bat-borne diseases with emphasis on the viral outbreaks as bats world-wide harbor a greater proportion of viruses than several other groups of mammals.</p

The New Normal: History and Impact of Pandemics

Fear is one of the psychological emotions that humans adapt to a potentially threatening situation, but when this fear is not calibrated well to the situation, it can become maladaptive. For instance, in the present wave of pandemic, the panic over the year is excessive, there may have deteriorating effects both on the individuals and the society. At individual level for example mental health problems and social anxiety may be seen, and at the level of society panic shopping, xenophobia, decline in the economy may well be noted. Pandemics have been seen in the history in many eras. They have brought about enormous changes in the existing world through ages. This rapid narrative review summarizes various aspects of the many pandemics in the history.</p

Improved Whale Optimization Algorithm for Transient Response, Robustness, and Stability Enhancement of an Automatic Voltage Regulator System

The proportional integral derivative (PID) controller is one of the most robust and simplest configuration controllers used for industrial applications. However, its performance purely depends on the tuning of its proportional (KP), integral (KI) and derivative (KD) gains. Therefore, a proper combination of these gains is primarily required to achieve an optimal performance of the PID controllers. The conventional methods of PID tuning such as Cohen-Coon (CC) and Ziegler&ndash;Nichols (ZN) generate unwanted overshoots and long-lasting oscillations in the system. Owing to the mentioned problems, this paper attempts to achieve an optimized combination of PID controller gains by exploiting the intelligence of the whale optimization algorithm (WOA) and one of its recently introduced modified versions called improved whale optimization algorithm (IWOA) in an automatic voltage regulator (AVR) system. The stability of the IWOA-AVR system was studied by assessing its root-locus, bode maps, and pole/zero plots. The performance superiority of the presented IWOA-AVR design over eight of the recently explored AI-based approaches was validated through a comprehensive comparative analysis based on the most important transient response and stability metrics. Finally, to assess the robustness of the optimized AVR system, robustness analysis was conducted by analyzing the system response during the variation in the time constants of the generator, exciter, and amplifier from &minus;50% to 50% range. The results of the study prove the superiority of the proposed IWOA-based AVR system in terms of transient response and stability metrics