How Fragrant are perfumes? A Micro Perspective from Middle East

Satisfaction is a consumer post-purchase evaluation of the overall service experience. As an important determinant of customer loyalty and retention, firms exhibit most care to maintain customer satisfaction intact, unless it cannot be up-scaled. Middle East is known for its fancy towards cosmetics in general and perfumes in particular. The present study, which was conducted as micro level, undertaken in the Kingdom of Bahrain, attempts to understand the customer satisfaction of perfumes. The study discusses, inter alia, brand consciousness, brand loyalty, loyalty towards vending outlets etc.Customer satisfaction, perfume market, brand consciousness, brand loyalty, shop loyalty, consumer exploitation, purchase behaviour, buying motive

An evaluation of intravenous antifungal medications in patients in a paediatric hospital

Objective: To retrospectively evaluate intravenous antifungal medications in paediatric patients in a public hospital for children.Method: Data relevant to the antifungal prescription were collected for all the patients <18 years of age who had been prescribed IV antifungal therapy. All paediatric patients prescribed intravenous antifungal treatment for one year (July 2006 to 30th June 2007) at PMH were evaluated retrospectively. The data collected were evaluated against the Australian Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic Version 13 and hospital in house guidelines for IV antifungal therapy from the microbiology department at the hospital.Results: There were 59 patients included in the study and the most frequently diagnosed disease was leukemia. Of the total 59 patients, liposomal amphotericin B (L-AmB) was prescribed for 47 patients, conventional amphotericin B (C-AmB) for four patients, caspofungin for two patients and voriconazole for one patient. Five patients received combination antifungals. The dose of C-AmB was 1 mg/kg/day. Voriconazole dose of 5 mg/kg/day was given for a period of four days for one patient. Nine patients included in this study were neonates and they were prescribed L-AmB, C-AmB and a combination of Voriconazole and L-AmB. 34 patients out of 47 were prescribed 3mg/kg/day of L-AmB and the highest L-AmB dose prescribed was 5 mg/kg/day and the lowest dose was 1 mg/kg/day. The median number of days for L-AmB treatment was found to be 11 days and the maximum was 51 days. Additionally 6% of patients who received L-AmB had oral fluconazole recommended r five days after cessation of L-AmB. It was found that 27% of patients had a low potassium level and a significantly higher proportion of patients had abnormal alanine aminotransferase and 11(18.6%) of the 59 patients had abnormal serum creatinine levels. It was found that the mean temperature decreased to 37.0°C from a 38.3°C from commencement to the cessation of the IV antifungal treatment. The longest duration of antifungal treatment in this study period was L-AmB prescribed for a period of 102 days.The estimated treatment cost for the longest treatment in this study was found to be AUD 34,222 if prepared in the pharmacy (CIVAS) and AUD 43,784 if prepared in the ward setting. Estimated total treatment cost for a four year old patient with a bodyweight of 21 kg on L-AmB for a period of 21 days was found to be AUD 7,803 when prepared in Pharmacy (CIVAS) and AUD 12,029 for Ward reconstitution.Conclusion: The data from this study indicated a satisfactory quality of IV antifungal treatment; however the remaining requirements for appropriate use required additional education. This study found that L-AmB was the antifungal agent of choice. Considerable savings could be made for pharmacy reconstituted IV antifungals by CIVAS over a ward setting where wastage occurs from unused antibiotic vials. At present the understanding of newer antifungal agents in children is limited. In future children should be included in the studies of new antifungal drugs and combination therapy and stratify the results by age, given the potential differences in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, efficacy and safety and cost

How Fragrant are perfumes? A Micro Perspective from Middle East

Satisfaction is a consumer post-purchase evaluation of the overall service experience. As an important determinant of customer loyalty and retention, firms exhibit most care to maintain customer satisfaction intact, unless it cannot be up-scaled. Middle East is known for its fancy towards cosmetics in general and perfumes in particular. The present study, which was conducted as micro level, undertaken in the Kingdom of Bahrain, attempts to understand the customer satisfaction of perfumes. The study discusses, inter alia, brand consciousness, brand loyalty, loyalty towards vending outlets etc

Evaluation of electrocardiographic and serum biochemical changes in arrhythmias associated with renal diseases of dogs

The present study was conducted to investigate electrocardiographical (ECG) and haemato-biochemical changes in arrhythmia associated with renal diseases in dogs. The dogs with renal affections confirmed through appropriate diagnostic methods were selected and screened for arrhythmia. The ECG and haemato-biochemical parameters of twenty dogs with arrhythmia were compared with that of the control group and ECG parameters were statistically correlated with the haemato-biochemical parameters for correlation studies. It was found that the occurrence of arrhythmia was 51.2 per cent in renal diseases. Arrhythmia was more predominant in dogs with chronic kidney disease (CKD) followed by acute kidney injury (AKI). Sinus arrhythmia followed by first-degree AV block and wandering pacemaker were the common types of arrhythmias observed. A significant increase in R-R interval and a decrease in heart rate was noticed in comparison. The haemato-biochemical analysis revealed anaemia, leukocytosis with neutrophilia, elevated blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine and magnesium level. A significant positive correlation was noticed between haemoglobin, volume of packed red cells (VPRC) and red blood cell count (RBC) with T amplitude and, creatinine and BUN levels with corrected Q-T interval. A significant negative correlation was noticed between VPRC, RBC and haemoglobin with the corrected QT interval. The present study revealed ECG and haemato-biochemical parameters had a significant role in renal diseases in dogs which might help in the early diagnosis and proper management of arrhythmia associated with renal diseases

Entangled Margins: The Portrayal of Marginalized Urban Spaces in Contemporary Indian English Fiction

The modern Indian metropolis is a site of profound contradiction, where gleaming symbols of global capital coexist with vast zones of deprivation and informality. While official cartographies and state-led urban narratives often render these marginalized spaces invisible or pathologized, contemporary Indian English fiction has emerged as a crucial counter-discourse. This review paper argues that novelists such as Arundhati Roy, Aravind Adiga, Deepa Anappara, Vikas Swarup, and Jeet Thayil employ marginalized urban spaces—slums, ghettos, wastelands, and forgotten peripheries— not merely as backdrops but as central, agentive landscapes that are inextricably entangled with the city’s core. Drawing upon the spatial theories of Henri Lefebvre and Edward Soja, and contextualized by insights from Indian urban studies, this paper analyzes how these literary works function as a form of spatial critique. By foregrounding the “lived space” of the urban poor, these novels challenge the dominant “conceived space” of planners and politicians, revealing the margin as a constitutive element of the urban whole. Ultimately, this fiction acts as a form of literary resistance, mapping spatial injustice and reclaiming the narrative of the city from the bottom up

Nano and micro-structural complexity of nematic liquid crystal configurations

Of our interest are frustration-driven pattern generating mechanisms in systems which in bulk equilibrium display spatially homogeneous long-range orientational order in absence of perturbations. As testbed material, we select thermotropic nematic liquid crystals. In bulk, they exhibit weakly discontinuous order-disorder phase transformation on varying temperature where the ordered nematic phase features spatially uniform axial order along an arbitrary symmetry breaking direction. However, due to continuous symmetry breaking (CSB) the established order is extremely susceptible to various perturbations which are in real systems in general always present. We theoretically illustrate how diverse complex patterns could be excited. Particularly intriguing configurations could appear if topological defects are present that could be generated via CSB. Our analysis is based on a relatively simple Lebwohl-Lasher-type model in which we could get analytical insight into phenomena of our interest. Using it we illustrate history dependent early stage isotropic-nematic phase evolution and final patterns in presence of "impurities" (e.g., nanoparticles). We show how characteristic effective interaction characteristics predict qualitatively different emerging patterns. Our analysis is based on CSB which is ubiquitous in nature. Consequently, demonstrated mechanisms are expected to manifest also in other condensed matter systems whose ordered phase is formed via CSB. We illustrate how kinetics and impurities could impact key structural properties of the systems of our interest