11 Years Old Female with Synergistic Presentation of Cranial and Spinal Pathologies: Myxopapillary Ependymoma with Hydrocephalus - A Rare Entity

The correlation between hydrocephalus and spinal cord tumor was first described by Kyrieleis et. al. 1% concomitant presence was documented by Mirroni et.al. Moreover, the understanding of the pathophysiological association between these two conditions is still lacking. 11 years old girl presented in the outpatient department of Jinnah hospital Lahore with complaints of difficulty in walking for the last 2 years, numbness of right leg for the last one year, and severe bilateral sciatica for 2 months. On further inquiry, she told that she is also suffering from headaches and blurred vision for the last 6 months. Her neuroimaging revealed hydrocephalus and mixed density heterogeneously enhancing intradural lesion at the conus. She underwent ventriculoperitoneal shunting for hydrocephalus and laminoplasty followed by excision of spinal tumor reported being myxopapillary ependymoma grade II. The presence of headache along with signs & symptoms of raised intracranial pressure in these patients warrant cranial imaging. CSF diversion for hydrocephalus and gross total excision of the spinal lesion is the standard acceptable treatment

Gender Variations in Research Productivity: Insights from Scholarly Research

Abstract The variations in research productivity available in the scholarly world, between men and women, have always attracted the interest of many researchers across the globe. The present study aims to identify the differences in research productivity, patent creation, funding, collaboration, citation and impact between men and women across regions and disciplines over a period of time. After the comprehensive literature survey, results of various studies were correlated in a systematic manner for further analyses to reveal the findings and draw conclusions. The findings clearly depict that comparatively, males have a higher average productivity than females for all the performance indicators especially research productivity, patent creation, funding and collaboration across regions and disciplines; however, the gap is narrowing with the passage of time. The researchers have noted many factors, personal as well as academic, responsible for the limited productivity of women in research. Age, marriage, children and domestic workload are some personal factors badly affecting research productivity of women whereas less representation of women in higher education, low academic ranks, and fewer research funds are some of the academic factors affecting the research productivity negatively. In order to eliminate the gender differences in research productivity, some recommendations have been provided. Keywords Gender Variation; Gender Differences; Research Productivity; Research Performance; Research Output; Research Funding; Gender Bias; Research Impac

Economic Evaluation of Pesticide Use Externalities in the Cotton Zones of Punjab, Pakistan

The crop protection strategy in Pakistan is almost entirely based on pesticide use whereas development of integrated pest management (IPM) based technologies is in its initial phases of scrutiny as well as implementation. The inefficient use of chemicals has resulted in environmental pollution and sub-optimal returns to the society on the costly investments. This study estimates the social cost of pesticide use and suggests appropriate guidelines for regulating the safe use of pesticides. An overall economic evaluation of the externalities for the current pesticide use levels shows that external costs are quite higher than the currently paid price at the farm gate level. The environmental degradation and public health costs inflicted on the society due to the inefficient chemical use on cotton crop amounts to twelve thousand million rupees. The reduced reliance on crop protection through chemical methods seems inevitable for a sustainable and healthy crop production.economic evaluation; externalities; pesticide use; social cost; crop protection; Punjab; Pakistan

Postcolonialism: An Overview

At present “Postcolonialism” has been a current topic in literary circles. As a genre of contemporary history, post colonialism questions and reinvents the manner in which a culture is being viewed, challenging the narratives expounded during the colonial era. Anthropologically, it records human relations between the colonists and the peoples under colonial rule, seeking to build an understanding of the nature and practice of colonial rule. Colonialism was presented as ‘the extension of civilization’, which ideologically justified the self-ascribed racial and cultural superiority of the Western world over the non-Western world. This paper accomplishes the phenomenon of post-colonialism. It presents general meanings of the post-colonialism theory and gives some information about its advancement and additionally explaining foundation information about essential points of interest of India's colonial past. It at that point focuses on the post-colonial advancement of India which was a British province until 1947

Efficacy of Prophylactic Intraoperative Povidone-Iodine Solution Irrigation in Preventing Surgical Site Infection Following Spinal Surgery

Objective:  Deep wound infection can worsen clinical outcome and increase costs following spinal surgery. The bactericidal activity of povidone-iodine covers a broad spectrum of pathogens including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Our study aimed at evaluating the role that intraoperative dilute povidone-iodine solution irrigation could play in preventing post-operative wound infection following spinal surgery. Material and Methods:  The clinical data of 41 patients that had undergone posterior spinal surgery in the department of neurosurgery Allama Iqbal hospital Sialkot was retrospectively analyzed. We divided the patients into two groups. In group 1patients wounds were irrigated with 0.35% povidone-iodine solution prior to closure. In group 2 patients wounds were irrigated with normal saline only. The two groups were then compared for evaluation of efficacy of peroperative povidone-iodine solution irrigation in preventing post-operative wound infection. Results:  No infection occurred in the 16 patients in group 1 in whom wounds had been irrigated with povidone-iodine solution, compared to 3 deep infections developing in the 25 patients in group 2 in whom wounds had been irrigated with normal saline only. In the 3 patients that suffered from deep infections the duration of hospital stay was also significantly increased (P < 0.05). Conclusion:  Our study supports the notion that perioperative povidone-iodine irrigation is an effective adjunct measure for prevention of surgical site infection following spinal surgical interventions

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for effective implementation of MGNREGA in Jammu & Kashmir

The landmark enactment of MGNREGA legislation in the year 2005 was aimed with a new dawn in poverty alleviation and rural self-employment in India, with prerogatives of rural employment and sustainable development. Success of the program is dependent on various parameters like participation, demand, accountability, implementation, fiscal health and usage of ICT as a tool of facilitation. The contemporary trends in development programs demand the extensive usage of ICT tools for the dissemination of information, planning, execution, and monitoring of programs to cultivate transparency and accountability. Knowing that the ICT is an inseparable part of MGNREGA, still, the tools of ICT are either absent or not being used effectively. Thus, it becomes imperative to study the essence of ICT tools about MGNREGA. The present study thus aims to assess ICT through the usage in various aspects of the MGNREGA scheme in district Kupwara and Poonch of J&K

Integration Efforts Estimation in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Applications

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an emerging area of software engineering, based on the concept of re-usable services to support the development of rapid, economical and stable distributed application even in heterogeneous environments. Function point is considered an accurate and well established approach among its competitors to estimate the efforts, size and functionality of software development projects. Estimating the cost, size and efforts for SOA application is a difficult task due to its diverse nature and loose coupling behavior, which results in an inaccurate estimate to measure the efforts, size and functionality of SOA applications. This research paper highlights the integration efforts estimation using a work flow model, to accurately estimate the efforts and cost needed for SOA application. Keywords: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Integration Efforts, Efforts Estimation, Function Point Analysis

Modeling and verification of Functional and Non-Functional Requirements of ambient Self-Adaptive Systems

International audienceSelf-Adaptive Systems modify their behavior at run-time in response to changing environmental conditions. For these systems, Non-Functional Requirements play an important role, and one has to identify as early as possible the requirements that are adaptable. We propose an integrated approach for modeling and verify- ing the requirements of Self-Adaptive Systems using Model Driven Engineering techniques. For this, we use Relax, which is a Requirements Engineering language which introduces flexibility in Non-Functional Require- ments. We then use the concepts of Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering for eliciting and modeling the requirements of Self-Adaptive Systems. For properties verification, we use OMEGA2/IFx profile and toolset. We illustrate our proposed approach by applying it on an academic case study

Analysis of metallurgical aspects and their role in processing and performance of superalloys: A review

Metallurgical processing factors like kinetic and thermodynamic parameters which are essential for modeling of γ′ phase precipitation have been studied. These parameters include γ′ solvus temperature, Gibbs free energy of dissociation of the γ matrix to form γ′, nucleation rate, effective diffusivity and interfacial energy. Nucleation methods and effect of cooling rate on the final phase structure have been analyzed. Co based  superalloys have been studied as a potential and promising material for aerospace applications. Effect of microporosity on the mechanical properties of Superalloys has also been analyzed.Keywords: Superalloys, Precipitation, Solidification, Gamma prime, Microsegregation, Microporosity

INHERITANCE OF QUANTITATIVE TRAITS IN COTTON (G. HIRSUTUM L.) I. YIELD AND YIELD COMPONENTS

A 4 x 4 diallel cross experiment for genetic analysis of five yield and related characters of cotton (G. hirsutum L.) was conducted. Additive effects with partial dominance predominated in the phenotypic manifestation of the characters. Epist atic effects were also observed to be involved in the expression of these characters. No heterosis was observed as indicated by the non-significance of parent vs crosses mean squares for all the characters studied