A Macroeconomic and Cultural Perspective

1. Abeer Pervaiz[1][1] 2. Mohammad Saud Khan[2][2][⇑][3] 1. 1Libera Universita di Bolzano-Bozen, Italy 2. 2University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark 1. Mohammad Saud Khan, Institute of Marketing and Management, Strategic Organization Design Unit, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense M, 5230, Denmark. Email: mohammadsaud19{at}gmail.com This study aims at understanding entrepreneurial relations between Pakistani and Western entrepreneurs. It emphasizes the concept of national culture and tries to determine how Pakistani entrepreneurs are able to manage relations with their foreign clients in an economic downturn. The qualitative study consists of interviews conducted with various entrepreneurs of Pakistan. Political instability emerged as a major trial that most entrepreneurs faced, which in turn lead to reluctance, reliability, and trust issues among foreign investors. Despite cultural differences and economic challenges, Pakistani entrepreneurs are willing to work hard to maintain their relationships with foreign entrepreneurs. [1]: #aff-1 [2]: #aff-2 [3]: #corresp-

Text Mining to Understand Gender Issues: Stories from The Red Pill, Men's Rights, and Feminism Movements

Addressing gender issues has become important worldwide. The United Nations (UN) endorses big data projects as a valuable tool to monitor its gender-related development goals. In this thesis, we first motivate the examination of The Red Pill, Men's Rights, and Feminism movements to identify gender issues. We present data-mining methodologies to analyze over 40,000 posts and 2 billion comments that were made on social media in relation to these social movements. Specifically, we examine the themes these movements discuss and their perspectives on them. We also analyze the people involved with these movements, by comparing their discussions and interests with other online communities. Our analysis leads to three main findings. First, gender movements discuss workplace sexism, personal safety, rape, and legal issues among other gender issues, and different movements often have different perspectives on these issues. Second, people involved with the Men's Rights movement are similar to people who are politically right-leaning and associated with sexist or racist content, whereas people involved with the Feminism movement are similar to those who are politically left-leaning, support minorities, body acceptance, and survivors of sexual assault. Third, people involved with The Red Pill movement are similar to those who do not believe in the egalitarianism of race or gender. We obtain insights beneficial to entities affected by gender issues, such as governments, and international organizations such as the UN Women

Environmental reporting in Pakistan’s oil and gas industry

This paper investigates to what extent Oil and Gas (O&G) companies in Pakistan report on environmental protection activities. Using a content analysis approach, environmental reporting (ER) in 13 companies’ annual reports and websites are investigated over a five year period (2010-2014) following the guidelines issued by Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). Results reveal that the majority of the companies were found to have a low level of ER. However, since the introduction of SECP’s voluntary guidelines, the level of ER increased during the sample study period. Companies that issued a stand-alone report were found to have higher levels of disclosure on their environmental protection practices. This study recommends that management engages with internal and external stakeholders with their environmental management practices. The results may also be beneficial to the government as they provide reporting guidance and stock exchange regulations regarding the obligatory dissemination of environment-related information

Patient’s Knowledge and Use of Oral Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs in a Rheumatology Clinic

Introduction We evaluated the knowledge of non-steroidal antiinflammatorydrugs (NSAIDs) including their dosage, side effects,contraindications, and drug interactions among the patients in anoutpatient rheumatology clinic. Methods Patients in a rheumatology clinic completed a short surveyassessing their knowledge of over-the-counter NSAIDs. Results The survey was provided to 400 participants and 275(68.5%) were using over-the-counter (OTC) NSAIDs. The majorityof the participants identified their commonly used NSAID. Almost athird were unaware of the contraindication of NSAIDs such as pepticulcer disease, chronic kidney disease, and hypertension. Nearly 53.9%participants denied having any discussion of OTC medications withtheir providers. Two-thirds of the respondents reported seeing onlythe medication packaging for the dose determination (67.8%). Conclusions The gap in patient knowledge of the potential sideeffects and the lack of discussion of OTC medications by the providersmay be predisposing the patients to preventable side effects fromNSAIDs

Quality of Life in Patients with Stoma

Objective: To determine the quality of life of patients with stoma at tertiary care Hospital. Methodology: This prospective study has been conducted at the general surgery department, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences hospital Islamabad (PIMS). The study was conducted from September 2019 to February 2020. All the patients having age more than 12 years, underwent intestinal stoma formation and either gender were included for study. Patients were interviewed regarding their routine activities after stoma and the impact of it on their social life including working status, sexual activities and life satisfaction. All the information of patients including demographic data was documented via self-derived proforma. Analysis of data was done by SPSS version 20. Results: Total 46 patients were studied having a stoma and were interviewed regarding their quality of life. The patient's mean age was 44.93+6.78 years. Out of all 34.8% were working currently and rest of the patients were still on bed rest.  34.8% were satisfied with sexual life. 71.7% were depressed after stoma surgery and 52.2% were hopeful about their future. 63% were socialised with peoples as before, 58.7% replied that stoma has affected their recreational activities and 52.2% answered that they can’t travel in any way. However according to overall satisfaction, 32.6% of patients were disagreeing, 34.8% were agreeing and 30.4% were undecided. Conclusion: It was concluded that almost half of the patients were satisfied and they are performing social and daily life activities however almost half of the patients needed psychological, financial, and relative support. Key words: Stoma, Quality of lif

Effects of Hepatitis C on Hematological Parameters in local areas of Mirpurkhas

Introduction: Various diseases have emerged as a major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HCV) confection, now that antiretroviral therapies become more effective e and has prolonged life expectancy in HIV-infected patients1. One of the most frequently identified extra-hepatic abnormalities often seen at the time of diagnosis of HIV is the hematological abnormalityObjective: To determine possible effects of Hepatitis C in local Population of MirpurkhasMethodology:140 diagnosed patients of Hepatitis C were selected from OPD/Ward MMCH and Civil Hospital Mirpurkhas, Patients of Hypertension, Heart Failure, Renal diseases and respiratory disease were excluded Their ALT, GGT, Alk Sodium was determined by kit method. Their RBC count, TLC, Platelet Count was counted and ESR was determinedResults: It was a prospective study and out of 140 hepatitis C patients 86 were male and 54 were female. The mean age was 54.77 ± 14.046 years. The mean height was 159.42 ± 11.188 cm and the mean weight was 53.69±10.604 Kgs. The mean BMI was calculated as 21.235 ± 5.0607 kgs/m2 (Table.1). The mean Hemoglobin was estimated as 10.639± 2.6924 gm% the mean RBC count was found 3.832 ± .8460 millions/cmm. The mean total leukocyte count was 9111.63 ± 4612.845 per cmm and the mean Platelet count was 160447.67 ± 93788.194 /dl. the mean ESR was 51.70 ± 26.320 (Table.2) The mean Alkaline phosphatase was 273.76± 96.818 IU, the mean GGT was 83.40 ± 102.650 IU and the mean ALT was 74.98 ± 58.614 IU. (Table.3.) The Correlation of hepatitis C was estimated by Pearson’s correlation using SPSS 15 and found that hepatitis has a significant correlation with Hemoglobin, RBC count, TLC and Platelet count (r=.167, .165, .181, 238 and p=.092̽*, .031*, 018* and .002** respectively) and it has an inverse correlation with ESR (r=-.213, p=.005**)Conclusion: Our data shows that hepatitis C has positive correlation with Hb, RBC Count, TLC and Platelet count while the hepatitis has a significant inverse correlation with ESR. More work is required to establish criteria regarding correlation between Hepatitis C and Hematological parameter

Impact of Removing Cost Sharing Under the Affordable Care Act (Aca) on Mammography and Pap Test Use

Background The Affordable Care Act (ACA) required private insurers and Medicare to cover recommended preventive services without any cost sharing to improve utilization of these services. This study is an attempt to identify the impact of removing cost sharing on mammography and pap test utilization rates. Methods Counterfactual analysis was used to predict what would have been the screening rates in post-ACA if ACA was not there. This was done by estimating a model that examines determinants of dependent variable for the pre-ACA year (pre-ACA year is 2009). The estimated model was then used to predict the dependent variable for the post-ACA year using individual characteristics and other relevant variables unlikely to be affected by ACA (post-ACA year is 2016). Effect of ACA is defined as the difference between the values of dependent variables in post-ACA and the predicted values of dependent variables in the post-ACA year using counterfactual. Results The counterfactual analysis show that the utilization of mammogram and pap test did not improve following ACA. Conclusion Removal of cost-sharing under the ACA did not improve mammography or pap test rates. Therefore, financial barrier may not be an important factor in affecting utilization of the screening tests and policy makers should focus on other non-financial barriers in order to improve coverage of the tests

Impact of Medicaid Coverage Expansion Under the Affordable Care Act on Mammography and Pap Tests Utilization Among Low-Income Women

Introduction The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded the coverage of Medicaid to include entire population with income below 138% of federal poverty line. It remains unclear whether this policy change has improved access to and utilization of health care, particularly use of mammography and Pap tests among poor women. Methods We used a difference-in-difference (DID) design to estimate the impact of Medicaid expansion on mammography and Pap tests utilization among low-income women. Expansion states are the treatment group and non-expansion states are the control group. The years 2012–13 are the pre-expansion period and 2015–16 are the post-expansion period for the purpose of estimating the DID parameters. Results The difference-in-difference estimate show that likelihood of utilizing mammograms did not change significantly among low-income women after the implementation of Medicaid expansion (DID coefficient -0.0476 with t-statistics at -1.26), Pap test decreased (coefficient -0.0615, t-statistics -2.76), and Medicaid enrollment has increased significantly among low-income women living in expansion states (coefficient 0.0889 with t-value of 3.68). Conclusion Expansion of Medicaid was associated with increased Medicaid enrollment but did not yield near-term improvement in use of mammography and Pap tests among low-income women. Factors beyond health insurance coverage may be important in determining the likelihood of obtaining these screenings. Policy makers should try to identify other barriers to cancer screenings among low-income women in the USA

Infantile haemangioendothelioma of the parotid gland: Case report and review of literature

Haemangioendotheliomas (HAE), although rare but are the most common parotid gland tumours in children. We report a 4-month-old girl who presented with a progressively enlarging right sided facial swelling overlying the angle of the mandible. An Ultrasound of the lesion and a computed tomography (CT) scan of the head and neck was carried out which revealed a large lesion within the right parotid gland. CT scan further demonstrated a direct communication with the right external carotid artery and external jugular vein. Considering the clinical course and radiological findings, there was sufficient evidence to avoid any invasive testing. Due to the self-limiting nature of the disease, patient was managed expectantly