Daily and monthly costs of terrorism on Pakistani exports

This is first of its kind empirical study on the costs of terrorism on Pakistan’s exports. The analysis finds that intensity of terrorist activity can be divided into three distinct periods. The LAL Masjid incident in mid 2007 marks the first sign of intensification of terrorism in Pakistan. The second one is the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The third one comes in 2008 when the US announced to shift gear from Iraq to Afghanistan and incumbent government in Pakistan created a political support for armed action within Pakistani borders against the terrorists. The analysis finds that terrorism has more significant affect on Pakistani exports post Benazir assassination. The report calculates the monthly and daily costs of terrorism. On average there are 2 terrorist attacks every day whereas 5 citizens on average die in these attacks. A single terrorist attack costs 12 million dollars to the exports. Post Benazir assassination the costs rise to 18 million dollars due to increased intensity where not only the death toll on average has risen but the number of terrorist attacks have gone up. Average per month loss in exports due to terrorism is calculated to be around 500 million dollars. Pakistan in 2006-09 has lost nearly 30 billion dollars in exports as its market shares have fallen. Part of this loss is explained by terrorism, where we find that 18 billion dollars accounts for it. Please note that extending the data for later years may make our results more pronounced but suffice to say our calculated β’s are robust capable of predicting terrorism for coming years. For example, it is found out that costs of number of deaths and number of injured are different while exports are more sensitive to the former capturing severity of casualties that is the hall mark of extreme terrorist actions like suicide attacks.Conflict, Trade

Treatment of Molluscum Contagiosum with 10% Potassium Hydroxide Solution

Background: To determine the efficacy and safety of topical 10% potassium hydroxide solution in the treatment of molluscum contagiosum (MC) .Methods: An open, prospective, non-randomized study of one year duration was conducted using 10% KOH solution to treat MC. Twenty eight patients completed the study. A total of seven appointments were planned; one baseline and six follow-up visits. 10% KOH was applied to molluscum lesions daily till the lesions resolved or till 3 months had elapsed.Results: Twenty eight patients, among which 22 were children, completed the study. The mean age of patients was 10.6 years. The total lesion count in the patients varied from 5 – 94, with the mean lesion count of 22.14 SD +_ 18.32. There was complete resolution of lesions in 20 (71.4%) of patients , 4 (14.3) had a near complete, 2 (7.1%) had partial and 2 (7.1%) patients had no improvement. 82% patients tolerated the treatment well with no side effects.Conclusion:10% KOH solution is an effective and well tolerated treatment for MC. It is less painful and cost-effective as compared to many well-established therapeutic modalities. It has the advantage of ease of application at home making it an acceptable and feasible option for the treatment of MC

Daily and monthly costs of terrorism on Pakistani exports

This is first of its kind empirical study on the costs of terrorism on Pakistan’s exports. The analysis finds that intensity of terrorist activity can be divided into three distinct periods. The LAL Masjid incident in mid 2007 marks the first sign of intensification of terrorism in Pakistan. The second one is the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The third one comes in 2008 when the US announced to shift gear from Iraq to Afghanistan and incumbent government in Pakistan created a political support for armed action within Pakistani borders against the terrorists. The analysis finds that terrorism has more significant affect on Pakistani exports post Benazir assassination. The report calculates the monthly and daily costs of terrorism. On average there are 2 terrorist attacks every day whereas 5 citizens on average die in these attacks. A single terrorist attack costs 12 million dollars to the exports. Post Benazir assassination the costs rise to 18 million dollars due to increased intensity where not only the death toll on average has risen but the number of terrorist attacks have gone up. Average per month loss in exports due to terrorism is calculated to be around 500 million dollars. Pakistan in 2006-09 has lost nearly 30 billion dollars in exports as its market shares have fallen. Part of this loss is explained by terrorism, where we find that 18 billion dollars accounts for it. Please note that extending the data for later years may make our results more pronounced but suffice to say our calculated β’s are robust capable of predicting terrorism for coming years. For example, it is found out that costs of number of deaths and number of injured are different while exports are more sensitive to the former capturing severity of casualties that is the hall mark of extreme terrorist actions like suicide attacks

BCR-ABL1 Gene Mutation in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Objective:  Determination of frequency of BCR-ABL1 gene mutation in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Methodology: This cross sectional study was carried out at the Department of Molecular Haematology, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology between January 2018 to March 2021. All newly diagnosed patients of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia were included in the study while patients already on treatment and with secondary leukemia were excluded from the study. Blood counts were done and various parameters such as total leukocyte count, hemoglobin, and platelet count were calculated. Results: 623 patients were included in the study. BCR-ABL gene was positive in 105 (16.8%) patients. A total of 96 (92%) were positive for BCR ABL p190 rearrangement and 9 (8%) were positive for BCR ABL p210 rearrangement.  Mean age of patients was 21 years. The frequency of BCR ABL gene was positive in 72% males and 28% females. BCR-ABL positive ALL was associated with higher TLC count. CNS involvement was more common in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with BCR-ABL. The likelihood of post-induction remission decreased with age. Conclusion: In our study population, a frequency of 16.8% patients were BCR ABL1 positive in acute lymphoblastic leukemia. BCR- ABL gene mutation in ALL is more prevalent in young adults. The frequency of p190 rearrangement is more common than p210 BCR-ABL rearrangement. BCR-ABL positive ALL is more prevalent in males than in females

Frequency and clinical variants of specific dermatoses in third trimester of pregnancy: a study from a tertiary care centre

OBJECTIVE: To determine the frequency of patients with dermatoses in the third trimester of pregnancy and to identify various clinical types of dermatoses in the third trimester. METHODS: The study was carried out at the Department of Dermatology and the Department of Gynaecology & Obstetrics, PNS Shifa Hospital, Karachi, from January 2 to July 1, 2008. Two hundred pregnant women in their third trimester were included in the study. The diagnosis was based on history, clinical examination and relevant investigations. Patients with physiological dermatoses and dermatoses which flare up during pregnancy were excluded. A comprehensive pro-forma was used to evaluate different dermatoses. Skin biopsy for histopathology was also done where necessary. RESULTS: The age of the study population ranged from 17 to 36 years (mean = 27.3 +/- 4.86). Five (2.5%) patients had prurigo of pregnancy, 4 (2%) had dermatoses associated with Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP), 3 (1.5%) patients had polymorphic eruption of pregnancy, and 1 (0.5%) patient had pruritic folliculitis of pregnancy. No case of pemphigoidgestationis was observed. CONCLUSION: In the study, 6.5% patients presented with specific dermatoses. Prurigo of pregnancy was the commonest condition. Polymorphic eruption of pregnancy was more common in primigravida, while dermatoses with intrahepatic cholestasis was seen more often in multigravida

Graduate Medical Education on the Frontlines during the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York City- A Response to Promote Well-being

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has driven many health care institutions in the United States beyond their capacity. Physicians-in-training in graduate medical education programs have suffered the strain of providing patient care during this unprecedented time of crisis. The significant prevalence of pre-existing resident and fellow burnout and depression makes the need for action by institutions to support the well-being of residents and fellows even more urgent. We aim to describe innovative adaptations our Office of Graduate Medical Education implemented with the support of institutional leadership as responses to promote the well-being of residents and fellows on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The Office of Graduate Medical Education (GME), in collaboration with the Office of Well-being and Resilience, developed a set of resources and interventions to support trainees during the pandemic based on four major categories: workplace culture, personal factors and health, mental health support, and workplace efficiency and function. Examination of the capacity of existing services and gaps that needed to be filled in the rapidly evolving early days of the COVID pandemic led to a robust growth in resources. For example, the already established Student and Trainee Mental Health program was able to expand and adapt its role to serve trainee needs more effectively. Results: We expanded resources to target trainee well-being across a broad array of domains within a short time frame. With investment in access to the Student and Trainee Mental Health program, utilization increased by 25.7%, with 1,231 more visits in 2020 compared to the number of visits in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The creation of Recharge Rooms had a positive impact on the well-being of health care workers. After a single fifteen-minute experience in the Recharge Room, an average 59.6% reduction in self-reported stress levels was noted by users. Other interventions were noted to be helpful in regular town hall meetings with trainees. Conclusion: Addressing trainee well-being is an essential aspect of a crisis response. The Mount Sinai Health System was able to care for the physical, mental, psychosocial, and safety needs of our trainees thanks to the collaborative effort of a pre-existing institutional well-being program and the GME Office. The ability to implement such a response was enabled by our well-being foundation, which allowed leadership at the highest institutional level and the Office of GME to provide support in response to this unprecedented crisis

Antidiabetic potential of Nigella sativa L seed oil in alloxaninduced diabetic rabbits

Purpose: To evaluate the antidiabetic, hypolipidemic and antioxidant potential of seed oil of Nigella sativa L (NSO). Methods: Nigella sativa seed oil (NSO) was extracted with Soxhlet apparatus using petroleum ether, and was given orally at a dose of 2.5 ml/kg body weight to alloxan-induced diabetic rabbits daily for 24 days. Biochemical parameters including total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TGs), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), very low lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL), high density lipoprotein (HDL) and plasma glucose were determined in the treatment and control groups. Furthermore, bilirubin, vitamin C, catalase and mean body weight were assessed. Results: NSO treatment significantly lowered serum blood glucose levels and lipid contents, but increased the mean body weight, HDL-C and vitamin C levels of diabetic rabbits (p < 0.001). Moreover, NSO significantly decreased catalase activity, TC, TGs, LDL-C and VLDL-C levels, but normalized bilirubin levels in diabetic rabbits. Conclusion: These results indicate that NSO possesses significant antidiabetic potential. Thus, it may be useful as an adjunct with antidiabetic medication but further studies are required to ascertain this. Keywords: Black cumin, Diabetes, Hypoglycemic, Hypolipidemic, Antioxidant

Caudal duplication syndrome: a rare entity

The rare caudal duplication syndrome is a spectrum of anomalies primarily involving partial or complete duplication of organs comprising the gastrointestinal, genitourinary and distal neural tube systems. These findings are considered to be a result of aberrant embryogenesis. We hereby report a case of an adult female with complete duplication of the genital and urinary systems (urethra and bladder), hindgut and lower end of vertebral column with no functional impairment. She presented in her first pregnancy at 36 weeks gestation, in labour. To the author's knowledge this is the first case of caudal duplication syndrome with pregnancy from Pakistan. Key Words: Caudal duplication, Genitourinary, Gestation, Hindgut

Cross-Domain Transfer Learning for Natural Scene Classification of Remote-Sensing Imagery

Natural scene classification, which has potential applications in precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, and disaster management, poses significant challenges due to variations in the spatial resolution, spectral resolution, texture, and size of remotely sensed images of natural scenes on Earth. For such challenging problems, deep-learning-based algorithms have demonstrated amazing performances in recent years. Among these methodologies, transfer learning is a useful technique which employs the learned features already extracted from the pre-trained models from large-scale datasets for the problem at hand, resulting in quicker and more accurate models. In this study, we deployed cross-domain transfer learning for the land-cover classification of remotely sensed images of natural scenes. We conducted extensive experiments to measure the performance of the proposed method and explored the factors that affect the performance of the models. Our findings suggest that fine-tuning the ResNet-50 model outperforms various other models in terms of the classification accuracy. The experimental results showed that the deployed cross-domain transfer-learning system achieved outstanding (99.5% and 99.1%) accurate performances compared to previous benchmarks on the NaSC-TG2 dataset with the final tuning of the whole structure and only the last three layers, respectively

Bacteriophages and their implications on future biotechnology: a review

Abstract Recently it has been recognized that bacteriophages, the natural predators of bacteria can be used efficiently in modern biotechnology. They have been proposed as alternatives to antibiotics for many antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. Phages can be used as biocontrol agents in agriculture and petroleum industry. Moreover phages are used as vehicles for vaccines both DNA and protein, for the detection of pathogenic bacterial strain, as display system for many proteins and antibodies. Bacteriophages are diverse group of viruses which are easily manipulated and therefore they have potential uses in biotechnology, research, and therapeutics. The aim of this review article is to enable the wide range of researchers, scientists, and biotechnologist who are putting phages into practice, to accelerate the progress and development in the field of biotechnology.</p