The Effect of Hospital Volume on Mortality in Patients Admitted with Severe Sepsis

Importance The association between hospital volume and inpatient mortality for severe sepsis is unclear. Objective: To assess the effect of severe sepsis case volume and inpatient mortality. Design Setting and Participants Retrospective cohort study from 646,988 patient discharges with severe sepsis from 3,487 hospitals in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 2002 to 2011. Exposures The exposure of interest was the mean yearly sepsis case volume per hospital divided into tertiles. Main Outcomes and Measures Inpatient mortality. Results: Compared with the highest tertile of severe sepsis volume (>60 cases per year), the odds ratio for inpatient mortality among persons admitted to hospitals in the lowest tertile (≤10 severe sepsis cases per year) was 1.188 (95% CI: 1.074–1.315), while the odds ratio was 1.090 (95% CI: 1.031–1.152) for patients admitted to hospitals in the middle tertile. Similarly, improved survival was seen across the tertiles with an adjusted inpatient mortality incidence of 35.81 (95% CI: 33.64–38.03) for hospitals with the lowest volume of severe sepsis cases and a drop to 32.07 (95% CI: 31.51–32.64) for hospitals with the highest volume. Conclusions and Relevance We demonstrate an association between a higher severe sepsis case volume and decreased mortality. The need for a systems-based approach for improved outcomes may require a high volume of severely septic patients

How to Read a Book in Five Minutes?

When you are engaged in a research thesis, you will normally have to understand a great deal of published material of various kinds. If you attempt literally to read all of this it will take you ages. Most likely, you simply will not have the time to do so on top of all of your other plans and responsibilities. So, you will have to be much more selective in your reading of most of it. For example, is it possible? Can you read a books, reports and articles quickly and effectively for research purposes? Can you get to the gist of the argument and pull out the material or details you want within minutes

Carbon tetrachloride induced kidney and lung tissue damages and antioxidant activities of the aqueous rhizome extract of Podophyllum hexandrum

BACKGROUND: The present study was conducted to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo antioxidant properties of aqueous extract of Podophyllum hexandrum. The antioxidant potential of the plant extract under in vitro situations was evaluated by using two separate methods, inhibition of superoxide radical and hydrogen peroxide radical. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)) is a well known toxicant and exposure to this chemical is known to induce oxidative stress and causes tissue damage by the formation of free radicals. METHODS: 36 albino rats were divided into six groups of 6 animals each, all animals were allowed food and water ad libitum. Group I (control) was given olive oil, while the rest groups were injected intraperitoneally with a single dose of CCl(4 )(1 ml/kg) as a 50% (v/v) solution in olive oil. Group II received CCl(4 )only. Group III animals received vitamin E at a concentration of 50 mg/kg body weight and animals of groups IV, V and VI were given extract of Podophyllum hexandrum at concentration dose of 20, 30 and 50 mg/kg body weight. Antioxidant status in both kidney and lung tissues were estimated by determining the activities of antioxidative enzymes, glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione-S-transferase (GST) and superoxide dismutase (SOD); as well as by determining the levels of reduced glutathione (GSH) and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS). In addition, superoxide and hydrogen peroxide radical scavenging activity of the extract was also determined. RESULTS: Results showed that the extract possessed strong superoxide and hydrogen peroxide radical scavenging activity comparable to that of known antioxidant butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT). Our results also showed that CCl(4 )caused a marked increase in TBARS levels whereas GSH, SOD, GR, GPX and GST levels were decreased in kidney and lung tissue homogenates of CCl(4 )treated rats. Aqueous extract of Podophyllum hexandrum successfully prevented the alterations of these effects in the experimental animals. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that the aqueous extract of Podophyllum hexandrum could protect the kidney and lung tissue against CCl(4 )induced oxidative stress probably by increasing antioxidant defense activities

Language Attitudes of Undergraduate Students towards English, Urdu and Punjabi: A Comparative Study of Public and Private Institutes of Lahore.

El estudio explora las actitudes lingüísticas de estudiantes universitarios hacia el inglés, el urdu y el punjabi. Baker (1992) considera, que dependiendo de las actitudes de la sociedad, un lenguaje tendrá éxito o fracasará. El marco teórico fue el modelo de 1992 de Baker. Este es un estudio en profundidad que exploró las actitudes de 272 estudiantes graduados de las dos universidades del sector público y dos privadas de Lahore, expleando enfoques cualitativos y cuantitativos. Los resultados mostraron actitudes fuertemente optimistas de estudiantes universitarios en ambos sectores hacia el inglés y el urdu, y las actitudes menos favorables hacia el punjabi. Los estudiantes de ambas industrias mostraron actitudes similares de género hacia los tres idiomas.The study explores the language attitudes of undergraduate students towards English, Urdu and Punjabi. Baker (1992) takes the view, that depending on the attitudes held by society, a language will succeed or fail. The theoretical framework implemented for this study was Baker's 1992 model. This is an in-depth study that explored the attitudes of 272 graduate students from Lahore's two public and two private sector universities. This analysis employed qualitative as well as quantitative approaches. The findings showed strongly optimistic attitudes of undergraduate students in both sectors towards English as well as Urdu, and the least favorable attitudes towards Punjabi. Students from both industries displayed similar gender-based attitudes toward the three languages

TRANSFORMATION OF INDIAN NATIONALISM AND ‘OTHERIZATION’ OF MUSLIMS IN INDIA

India has altered its military stratagem under the Modi government from nuclear deterrence to offensive defence. The constant use of offensive defence in the milieu of deliberate political aggression against Pakistan and victimization of the Muslim community in India is making Indian military doctrine a hostage of hyper-nationalistic politics of Hindutva. Since its rise to power, the BJP government has conflated anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan approaches. Pakistan remains a crucial factor in its domestic, diplomatic, and foreign policy rhetoric. The internal discord and surge of violence against the Muslim population, as evident by 2020-riots in north-eastern New Delhi, are indicative of vigorous reforming of the national identity of India dominated by Hindutva ideology. Therefore, this paper addresses Hindu nationalism, which arose as a political ideology and caused an insecure environment for Indian Muslims while becoming precarious for Pakistan. It infers that Hindu nationalism, along with its assimilation approach towards minorities, is gradually asserting exclusionary conception of a state where cultural and political centrality of Hindutva has become a core theme.   Bibliography Entry Shahzad, Aisha, Sadia Mahmood Falki, and Asma Sana Bilal. 2021. "Transformation of Indian Nationalism and ‘Otherization’ of Muslims in India." Margalla Papers 25 (1): 48-58

Can Large Language Models Support Editors Pick Related News Articles?

Editors and journalists play an important role on news platforms. Besides creating trustworthy news stories, they also provide valuable expertise on which stories are placed on the front page and hand-pick related articles for platform users to read further. This paper focuses on the specific task of related article selection commonly carried out daily by editors and journalists on news platforms. This is typically a manual process that utilizes an internal search tool to first find a pool of potential candidate articles. Then, from those candidate articles, editors and journalists hand-pick the top related articles for a given news article as a form of expert-selected suggestions for the readers. Although this task can be an important part of the editorial process in news platforms, it may become time-consuming and demanding, often requiring significant human effort. In addressing this challenge, we propose an automatic mechanism to support editors and journalists in this task by incorporating one of the latest Large Language Models (LLMs), i.e., GPT4o-mini, to shortlist a set of related articles and recommend them to be checked by journalists and editors. Our evaluation of the proposed approach, based on a real-world dataset from one of the largest commercial Norwegian news platforms (i.e., TV 2), demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach in supporting editors and journalists in their task of selecting relevant news articles.publishedVersio

Development Of Rice Starch Microneedles For Drug Delivery To The Skin

Microneedles (MNs) are minimally invasive biomedical devices that help drugs to bypass the skin barrier, resulting in systemic and localised pharmacological effects. Dissolving MNs are associated with high patient compliance and lower cross-contamination risk as compared to other MN types. Rice starch (RSC) has a high potential to be used in the development of dissolving MNs owing to its good film-forming properties, biodegradability, non-toxicity, and low cost. However, formulation of dissolving MNs using RSC is challenging due to the inherent brittleness of RSC. This thesis aims to explore RSC as a biopolymer for the fabrication of dissolving MN for drug delivery to the skin. Formulation of dissolving MNs with neat RSC was impossible due to the poor mechanical properties of RSC. Therefore, polymer blends of RSC with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) or polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) were initially used to develop films as a preliminary investigation before MN development. The addition of PVA or PVP enhanced the mechanical strength and dissolution of RSC-based films. Meanwhile, characterisation of different RSC blends demonstrated that MNs formulated with RSC blends using 20 %w/w of PVA (PVA20-MN) or 40 %w/w of PVP (PVP40-MN) showed intact needle formation with sufficient mechanical strength, skin insertion and dissolution within 60 min

MOTIVATION ENHANCING HRM PRACTICES’ AND EMPLOYEE DEMOGRAPHICS ON AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT AMONG EMPLOYEES IN TEXTILE MANUFACTURING IN PAKISTAN

The current study is an attempt to probe the relationship of a setof motivation enhancing HRM practices & employee demographics with affective commitment among employees working in textile manufacturing organizations. A well-structured questionnaire tool was used to collect the data from 232 employees working on managerial positions. The Pearson coefficient of correlation and ANNOVA analyses revealed that system consisting of motivation enhancing HRM practices and demographic variable “age” were stronger predictors of employee affective commitment, the education level exhibited association at 0.08 significance level, the employee demographics: gender and job period posed no significant association with employee affective commitment. The findings are in relevance with past researches, practical implications and need for futureresearch are also discussed

POTs: Protective Optimization Technologies

Algorithmic fairness aims to address the economic, moral, social, and political impact that digital systems have on populations through solutions that can be applied by service providers. Fairness frameworks do so, in part, by mapping these problems to a narrow definition and assuming the service providers can be trusted to deploy countermeasures. Not surprisingly, these decisions limit fairness frameworks' ability to capture a variety of harms caused by systems. We characterize fairness limitations using concepts from requirements engineering and from social sciences. We show that the focus on algorithms' inputs and outputs misses harms that arise from systems interacting with the world; that the focus on bias and discrimination omits broader harms on populations and their environments; and that relying on service providers excludes scenarios where they are not cooperative or intentionally adversarial. We propose Protective Optimization Technologies (POTs). POTs provide means for affected parties to address the negative impacts of systems in the environment, expanding avenues for political contestation. POTs intervene from outside the system, do not require service providers to cooperate, and can serve to correct, shift, or expose harms that systems impose on populations and their environments. We illustrate the potential and limitations of POTs in two case studies: countering road congestion caused by traffic-beating applications, and recalibrating credit scoring for loan applicants.Comment: Appears in Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* 2020). Bogdan Kulynych and Rebekah Overdorf contributed equally to this work. Version v1/v2 by Seda G\"urses, Rebekah Overdorf, and Ero Balsa was presented at HotPETS 2018 and at PiMLAI 201

Motivating Tacit Knowledge Sharing: The Role of Perceived Value of Knowledge and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Purpose: This study investigates the challenge of retaining and sharing tacit knowledge during employee transitions in organizations, with a specific focus on software developers' motivations. We examine two key motivational beliefs: the perceived value of knowledge and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and their influence on sharing intentions. Additionally, we explore how these beliefs shape attitudes, subsequently affecting intentions regarding tacit knowledge sharing.   Theoretical Framework: Grounded in the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), our research underscores the pivotal role of beliefs in shaping attitudes and intentions related to tacit knowledge sharing. Beliefs, encompassing the Perceived Value of Knowledge and OCB, play a significant role in molding attitudes. Using structural equation modeling, we analyze data collected from 197 software developers, employing confirmatory factor analysis to validate our measurement model and structural model analysis to explore relationships.   Findings: Our findings indicate that software developers are indeed willing to share their tacit knowledge, with their willingness positively influenced by the perceived value of tacit knowledge and engagement in OCB. Attitudes towards sharing tacit knowledge act as mediators in the relationship between these beliefs and sharing intentions.   Implications: In practical terms, organizations can foster tacit knowledge sharing by promoting positive attitudes, recognizing knowledge's perceived value, and cultivating a culture that encourages OCB. This facilitates a conducive environment for sharing, further enhanced by acknowledging and rewarding employees who exhibit OCB. Theoretical implications align with the Theory of Reasoned Action, emphasizing the role of attitude in shaping intentions. Our research contributes uniquely by exploring the underrepresented relationship between perceived knowledge value and tacit knowledge sharing, introducing a novel approach by examining the combined impact of OCB and perceived value. These insights are valuable for organizations looking to cultivate a culture of tacit knowledge sharing, driving innovation and enhancing performance