Pakistani Elite Press and Public Agenda: The Case of Women Social Issues

This study attempts to find the correlation between the coverage of social issues of women by Pakistani elite press and the preferences of its readers regarding the coverage. The results show that Pakistani elite press has its own policy to give space and prominence by covering social issues of women in its contents and its readers are not agreed with its policy. The policy adopted by both dailies is different from each other. The News did not give more space and prominence to the issues in its coverage. The issues of murder and rape are on the top in the list of the agenda of The News. On the other hand, The daily Dawn has a policy to highlight the issues by covering them with more space and prominence. The issues of murder and women rights are on the top in the list of the agenda of Dawn. While in perspective of audience characteristics, the readers those higher in age, education, belong to social sciences, female, and married comparatively have more correspondence with the agenda of the dailies. The issues of murder, rape, and women rights have received maximum coverage by Pakistani elite press in overall coverage. Keywords: Elite, Newspapers, Women, Social, Issues, Dawn, New

Reorganising for COVID-19 pandemic: A review of structural modifications by the department of internal medicine in low to middle-income countries

Scientists classified the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as a novel coronavirus on January 7, 2020. The World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged the SARS-CoV-2 outburst a public health emergency of international concern on January 30, 2020. Since its origin, this virus has disrupted the best healthcare systems, economies, and strained financial resources; and for underdeveloped countries\u27 healthcare systems, the virus has become a crisis. To tackle the potential hazards from this virus, our Department restructured the services that not only helped us to cope with the pandemic, but also provided an example to copy for other contemporary institutes. This article aims to describe the measures and structural changes undertaken by the Internal Medicine Department, Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Karachi, Pakistan. Key Words: COVID-19, Internal medicine, Structural modifications, Pandemic

Referral pattern and outcomes of neonates from secondary care setting of Aga Khan University hospital to tertiary care centers in Pakistan

Objective: To determine the reasons of neonatal referrals from secondary-care to tertiary-care setting, and to assess neonatal outcomes for the referred cases.Methods: The retrospective study was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, and comprised data from July 2015 to June 2019 Related to all neonates born after 32 weeks of gestation at the satellite secondary-care centres in Kharadar, Garden and Karimabad who had been referred to the main tertiary care hospital. The reason for referral, need of mechanical ventilation, referral place and neonatal outcome were noted. Data was analysed using SPSS 22.Results: Of the 348 cases, 211(60.6%) were boys. The overall mean gestational age was 36.42±2.61 weeks and the mean birth weight was 2.54±0.67 kg. The outcome was neonatal mortality in 42(12%) cases. Of the remaining 306(88%) cases, 284(92.81%) were discharged from the hospital and 22(7.18%) left against medical advice. Overall, mechanical ventilation was needed in 63(18.1%) patients. There was a significant association of mechanical ventilation with low Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration score at 1 and 5 minutes (pConclusions: The most common reasons for referral of newborns to tertiary care hospital were respiratory diseases requiring respiratory support and surgical intervention

Modeling and Forecasting of Energy Scenario in Pakistan with Application of Decentralized Energy Planning

The global energy demand has enlarged in recent years as a result of industrial development and population growth. This scenario has even intensified in Pakistan affecting industrial as well as domestic and agriculture sectors, causing 2-3% of GDP loss annually. According to Pakistan Energy Year Book 2012, Pakistan generation capacity being 95365GWh is far greater than the consumption 76,761GWh, indicating that these power-outages are not because of lack of generation capacity but improper energy management. The current pattern of centralized electricity based on costly imported oil, has resulted in inequities, debts and high transmission losses. Therefore, a change in overall energy mix has to be made considering requirements and regional availability of competent resources which can be possible by introducing Decentralized Energy Planning in power policy. In the present research work a comprehensive energy model for Pakistan has been created using LEAP, identifying the loop-holes in system and presenting possible remedies for the current energy crunch

Prevalence and Impact of Concomitant Atrial Fibrillation in Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention for Acute Myocardial Infarction

Background: Concomitant atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with an adverse prognosis in patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI). However, it remains unclear whether this is due to a causal effect of AF or whether AF acts as a surrogate marker for comorbidities in this population. Furthermore, there are limited data on whether coronary artery disease distribution impacts the risk of developing AF. Methods: Consecutive patients admitted with acute MI and treated using percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) at a single centre were retrospectively identified. Associations between AF and major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) over a median of five years of follow-up were assessed using Cox regression, with adjustment for confounding factors performed using both multivariable modelling and a propensity-score-matched analysis. Results: AF was identified in N = 65/1000 (6.5%) of cases; these patients were significantly older (mean: 73 vs. 65 years, p < 0.001), with lower creatinine clearance (p < 0.001), and were more likely to have a history of cerebrovascular disease (p = 0.011) than those without AF. In addition, patients with AF had a greater propensity for left main stem (p = 0.001) or left circumflex artery (p = 0.004) involvement. Long-term MACCE rates were significantly higher in the AF group than in the non-AF group (50.8% vs. 34.2% at five years), yielding an unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) of 1.86 (95% CI: 1.32–2.64, p < 0.001). However, after adjustment for confounding factors, AF was no longer independently associated with MACCEs, either on multivariable (adjusted HR: 1.25, 95% CI: 0.81–1.92, p = 0.319) or propensity-score-matched (HR: 1.04, 95% CI: 0.59–1.82, p = 0.886) analyses. Conclusions: AF is observed in 6.5% of patients admitted with acute MI, and those with AF are more likely to have significant diseases involving left main or circumflex arteries. Although unadjusted MACCE rates were significantly higher in patients with AF, this effect was not found to remain significant after adjustment for comorbidities. As such, this study provided no evidence to suggest that AF is independently associated with MACCEs

Enhancing spectrum sensing efficiency in multi-channel cognitive device-to-device networks: Medium Access Control layer strategies and analysis

The detection and characterisation of electromagnetic signals within a specific frequency range, known as spectrum sensing, plays a crucial role in Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs). The CRNs aim to adapt their communication parameters to the surrounding radio environment, thereby improving the efficiency and utilisation of the available radio spectrum. Spectrum sensing is particularly important in device-to-device (D2D) communication when operating independently of the cellular network infrastructure. The Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol coordinates device communication and ensures interference-free operation of the CRN coexisting with the primary cellular network. A spectrum sensing strategy at the MAC layer for cognitive D2D communication. The strategy focuses on reducing the overall sensing period allocated at the MAC layer by having each Cognitive D2D User (cD2DU) sense a smaller subset of available channels while maintaining the same sensing time for cellular user detection at the physical layer. To achieve this, the concept of concurrent groups of D2D devices is introduced in proximity, which are formed by using unique IDs of cD2DUs during the device discovery stage. Each concurrent group senses a specific portion of the cellular user band in a shorter time, resulting in a reduced overall sensing period. In addition to mitigating traffic congestion through data diversion from the cellular network, the proposed strategy facilitates the concurrent sensing of multiple channels by cD2DUs within the underutilised cellular user band. This leads to extended data transmission periods, increased network throughput, and effective offloading of the cellular network. The effectiveness of the proposed work is evaluated by considering factors, such as network throughput and transmission time. Simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the approach in improving spectrum utilisation and communication efficiency in multi-channel Cognitive D2D Networks (cD2DNs)

Prevalence, diversity and disease association of <i>Helicobacter pylori</i> in dyspeptic patients from Pakistan

Introduction: The etiological association of Helicobacter pylori with gastric ulcer (GU), gastric cancer (GC), and duodenal ulcer (DU) is well-known. Understanding the epidemiology of H. pylori facilitates the estimation of disease burden in a certain population. This study presents the diversity of H. pylori genotypes and their association with different clinical outcomes among dyspeptic patients in Pakistan over a period of four years. Methodology: Gastric biopsy samples from a total of 450 dyspeptic individualswere subjected to PCR, genotypingand histology. Results: A total of 201 (45%) cases were found positive for H. pylori. The detection rate was high in GU (91%), DU (86%) and GC (83%) cases compared with those cases who had intact gastric mucosa (18%). Histology revealed the presence of infection in 68% of cases of mild/chronic nonspecific gastritis with others belonging to the GU sequel. cagA gene carriage was observed in 104 (51%) cases or mostly from DU, GU and GC groups, of which 97 were Western type strains while 3 were East-Asian type strains that are rarely observed in South Asia. vacA allelic variant s1am1 was most commonly observed, followed by s1am2, and s1bm1, with direct correlation in diseased cases (gastritis, GU, DU and GC). Prevalent genotypic combinations were s1am1/cagA- in gastritis and s1am1/cagA+ in DU, GU, and GC. Conclusions: Our study indicates the predominant circulation of Western type cagA and vacAs1am1 type H. pylori strains in Pakistan.</br

COMPARATIVE PROFILING OF BIOMARKER PSORALEN IN ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVE EXTRACTS OF DIFFERENT SPECIES OF GENUS FICUS BY VALIDATED HPTLC METHOD

Background: A simple but sensitive HPTLC method was developed for the comparative evaluation of psoralen in antioxidant active extracts of leaves of five different species of genus Ficus (Ficus carica, Ficus nitida, Ficus ingens, Ficus palmata and Ficus vasta). Materials and Methods: HPTLC studies were carried out using CAMAG HPTLC system on Glass-backed silica gel 60F254 HPTLC pre-coated plates using selected mobile phase toluene: methanol (9:1). The antioxidant activity was carried out, using DPPH free radical method. Results: Among all the five species of genus Ficus, F. palmata and F. carica exhibited comparatively good antioxidant activity in DPPH assay. The developed HPTLC method was found to give a compact spot for psoralen (Rf = 0.55±0.001) at 305 nm. The regression equation and r2 for psoralen was found to be Y= 4.516X+35.894 and 0.998. The quantification result revealed the presence of psoralen in only two species, F. carica (0.24%, w/w) and F. palmata (1.88%, w/w) which supported their supremacy for anti-oxidant potential over other species. The statistical analysis proved that the developed method was reproducible and selective. Conclusion: The developed method can be used as an important tool to assure the therapeutic dose of active ingredients in herbal formulations as well as for standardization and quality control of bulk drugs and in-process formulations. This method can also be employed for the further study of degradation kinetics and determination of psoralen in plasma and other biological fluids