254 research outputs found

    Promoting Regional Health Cooperation: The South Asian Public Health Forum

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    One of the ways in which health professionals can help to improve the poor state of public health in South Asia is through regional cooperation and collaboration

    Implementation of HR Practices in University Teachers of Pakistan

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    The paper in your hand basically addresses the issue of organizational citizenship behavior in a particular context of Pakistani universities teachers. As education is most neglected area in Pakistan, we want to give better understanding of the concept of OCB. This paper will provide guidelines to researchers, teachers, education sector, and other education related institutions to form such policies which can help to increase the higher education standard. Our sample size is 274 university teachers from both public and private sector, including male and female, age ranges from 25 to 60 and teaching experience ranges from less than one year to 10 years. We have taken different HR practices implemented in universities and we studied their impact on the organizational citizenship behavior with mediating effect of organizational commitment it is found significantly positive from. So, we have concluded that by practicing all these independent variables in an effective and efficient way we can increase organizational commitment and it ultimately positively affect the employee positive and cooperative kind of behaviors i-e OC

    Suprachoroidal Versus Intravitreal Injection of Triamcinolone Acetonide As Primary Treatment For Diabetic Macular Edema

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    Abstract Objective: This study aims to evaluate and compare the effects of suprachoroidal and intravitreal triamcinolone administration, as a primary treatment, on best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), central macular thickness (CMT), and intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME). Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted from November 2022 to April 2023. 64 eyes were enrolled with Inclusion criteria comprising patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) (central involving) with BCVA < 6/9, CMT > 300 µm on optical coherence tomography (OCT), and no prior DME treatment. Patients were divided into suprachoroidal triamcinolone (SCTA) (Group I) and intravitreal triamcinolone (IVTA) (Group II) groups. Follow-up occurred at 1 week, 1 month, and 3 months post-injection. BCVA, CMT, and IOP were recorded. Data were analyzed using SPSS with a significance threshold of p < 0.05. Results: Both treatment groups exhibited improved BCVA and reduced CMT. Suprachoroidal delivery demonstrated more substantial visual acuity improvements compared to the intravitreal group. Reduction in IOP was observed in the suprachoroidal group at 1stweek post-treatment (p<0.001), while the intravitreal group experienced increased IOP at later follow-ups (p<0.001). Conclusion: This study illuminates the efficacy of both suprachoroidal and intravitreal triamcinolone administration as the primary treatment for DME. While both modalities displayed promising outcomes, suprachoroidal delivery exhibited more substantial visual acuity improvements with fewer side effects and promising alternatives for DME treatment.

    Unintended Memorization and Timing Attacks in Named Entity Recognition Models

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    Named entity recognition models (NER), are widely used for identifying named entities (e.g., individuals, locations, and other information) in text documents. Machine learning based NER models are increasingly being applied in privacy-sensitive applications that need automatic and scalable identification of sensitive information to redact text for data sharing. In this paper, we study the setting when NER models are available as a black-box service for identifying sensitive information in user documents and show that these models are vulnerable to membership inference on their training datasets. With updated pre-trained NER models from spaCy, we demonstrate two distinct membership attacks on these models. Our first attack capitalizes on unintended memorization in the NER's underlying neural network, a phenomenon NNs are known to be vulnerable to. Our second attack leverages a timing side-channel to target NER models that maintain vocabularies constructed from the training data. We show that different functional paths of words within the training dataset in contrast to words not previously seen have measurable differences in execution time. Revealing membership status of training samples has clear privacy implications, e.g., in text redaction, sensitive words or phrases to be found and removed, are at risk of being detected in the training dataset. Our experimental evaluation includes the redaction of both password and health data, presenting both security risks and privacy/regulatory issues. This is exacerbated by results that show memorization with only a single phrase. We achieved 70% AUC in our first attack on a text redaction use-case. We also show overwhelming success in the timing attack with 99.23% AUC. Finally we discuss potential mitigation approaches to realize the safe use of NER models in light of the privacy and security implications of membership inference attacks.Comment: This is the full version of the paper with the same title accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the 23rd Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, PETS 202

    Response of patients of scabies to Topical Permethrin 5%and Treatment Failure

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    Objective:               This research was conducted to know response of patients of scabies to Topical permethrin and reasons for its treatment failure.Design:            This was observational type of study.Duration and Time:                              This study was conducted at Dermatology department Lahore General Hospital from 1st July 2017 to 31 december 2017.Method:            Every patient having persistent pruritic rash, aggravated at night and significant family history was included in our study. Written consent from each patient was obtained. Topical Permethrin lotion (5%) was provided to the patient and patients were asked to follow up 2 week after application of Permethrin lotion. On followup Patients were asked about improvement of prior symptoms and response to treatment was assessed. Factors leading to treatment failure were found out in non-respondents.Results:A total of 97 patients were included in our study. In 60(61.85%) patients symptoms had resolved and in 37(38.15%)  patients symptoms did not resolve after application of Permethrin lotion.Out of 37 patients, 17(45.94%) patients told that their close family contacts did not use the lotion, 12( 32.43%) patients did not follow environmental control measures, 5(13.51%) patients did not follow guidelines of applying topical permethrin , 3(8.10%)  patients showed no improvement in symptoms of scabies despite following all measures.Conclusion:Topical Permethrin (5%) is an excellent treatment option for scabies. However treatment of close contacts, environmental measures and Proper technique of Permethrin application is very important for the best results.

    Response of patients of scabies to Topical Permethrin 5%and Treatment Failure

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    Objective:               This research was conducted to know response of patients of scabies to Topical permethrin and reasons for its treatment failure.Design:            This was observational type of study.Duration and Time:                              This study was conducted at Dermatology department Lahore General Hospital from 1st July 2017 to 31 december 2017.Method:            Every patient having persistent pruritic rash, aggravated at night and significant family history was included in our study. Written consent from each patient was obtained. Topical Permethrin lotion (5%) was provided to the patient and patients were asked to follow up 2 week after application of Permethrin lotion. On followup Patients were asked about improvement of prior symptoms and response to treatment was assessed. Factors leading to treatment failure were found out in non-respondents.Results:A total of 97 patients were included in our study. In 60(61.85%) patients symptoms had resolved and in 37(38.15%)  patients symptoms did not resolve after application of Permethrin lotion.Out of 37 patients, 17(45.94%) patients told that their close family contacts did not use the lotion, 12( 32.43%) patients did not follow environmental control measures, 5(13.51%) patients did not follow guidelines of applying topical permethrin , 3(8.10%)  patients showed no improvement in symptoms of scabies despite following all measures.Conclusion:Topical Permethrin (5%) is an excellent treatment option for scabies. However treatment of close contacts, environmental measures and Proper technique of Permethrin application is very important for the best results.

    Population sensitivity of acute flaccid paralysis and environmental surveillance for serotype 1 poliovirus in Pakistan: an observational study.

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    BACKGROUND: To support poliomyelitis eradication in Pakistan, environmental surveillance (ES) of wastewater has been expanded alongside surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). ES is a relatively new method of surveillance, and the population sensitivity of detecting poliovirus within endemic settings requires estimation. METHODS: Data for wild serotype 1 poliovirus from AFP and ES from January 2011 to September 2015 from 14 districts in Pakistan were analysed using a multi-state model framework. This framework was used to estimate the sensitivity of poliovirus detection from each surveillance source and parameters such as the duration of infection within a community. RESULTS: The location and timing of poliomyelitis cases showed spatial and temporal variability. The sensitivity of AFP surveillance to detect serotype 1 poliovirus infection in a district and its neighbours per month was on average 30.0% (95% CI 24.8-35.8) and increased with the incidence of poliomyelitis cases. The average population sensitivity of a single environmental sample was 59.4% (95% CI 55.4-63.0), with significant variation in site-specific estimates (median varied from 33.3-79.2%). The combined population sensitivity of environmental and AFP surveillance in a given month was on average 98.1% (95% CI 97.2-98.7), assuming four samples per month for each site. CONCLUSIONS: ES can be a highly sensitive supplement to AFP surveillance in areas with converging sewage systems. As ES for poliovirus is expanded, it will be important to identify factors associated with variation in site sensitivity, leading to improved site selection and surveillance system performance

    Application of silicon and sodium hydrosulfide alleviates arsenic toxicity by regulating the physio-biochemical and molecular mechanisms of Zea mays

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    Soil contaminationwith toxic heavy metals (such as arsenic (As)) is becoming a serious global problem due to rapid development of social economy, although the use of silicon (Si) and sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS) has been found effective in enhancing plant tolerance against biotic and abiotic stresses including the As toxicity. For this purpose, a pot experiment was conducted using the different levels of As toxicity in the soil, i.e., (0 mM (no As), 50, and 100 µM) which were also supplied with the different exogenous levels of Si, i.e., (0 (no Si), 1.5, and 3 mM) and also with the NaHS, i.e., (0 (no NaHS), 1, and 2 mM) on growth, photosynthetic pigments, gas exchange characteristics, oxidative stress biomarkers, antioxidant machinery (enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants), and their gene expression, ion uptake, organic acid exudation, and As uptake of maize (Zea mays L.). Results from the present study showed that the increasing levels of As in the soil significantly (P \u3c 0.05) decreased plant growth and biomass, photosynthetic pigments, gas exchange attributes, sugars, and nutritional contents from the roots and shoots of the plants. In contrast, increasing levels of As in the soil significantly (P \u3c 0.05) increased oxidative stress indicators in terms of malondialdehyde, hydrogen peroxide, and electrolyte leakage and also increased organic acid exudation patter in the roots of Z. mays, although the activities of enzymatic antioxidants and the response of their gene expressions in the roots and shoots of the plants and non-enzymatic such as phenolic, flavonoid, ascorbic acid, and anthocyanin contents were initially increased with the exposure of 50 µM As, but decreased by the increasing the As concentration 100 µM in the soil. The negative impact of As toxicity can overcome the application of Si and NaHS, which ultimately increased plant growth and biomass by capturing the reactive oxygen species and decreased oxidative stress in Z. mays by decreasing the As contents in the roots and shoots of the plants. Our results also showed that the Si was more sever and showed better results when we compared with NaHS under the same treatment of As in the soil. Research findings, therefore, suggest that the combined application of Si and NaHS can ameliorate As toxicity in Z. mays, resulting in improved plant growth and composition under metal stress, as depicted by balanced exudation of organic acids
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