Injustice

I translated this Hindi poem by Nityanand Gayen at a time when it was becoming oppressive to live in America as an immigrant, a person of color and a woman, under the rhetoric of political leaders who degraded these core aspects of my identity. The country experienced a ban on visas for people from nations where Islam is the dominant religion, a women’s awakening with the MeToo movement and the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum as the murders of African Americans continued to escalate with brutal violence perpetuated by the law enforcement officers. As citizens, vast majority of us had a political awakening where remaining silent was no longer an option. I do not know the context in which the poet wrote the poem, but being a young contemporary poet, the news from India with politically motivated violence against women and muslims begged for attention by everyone

I Arrived In This World A Bit Late

Kunwar Nayaran was decorated with the Jnanpith, the highest literary award in 2005 and the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor in India, in 2009, and was well known Indian poet abroad with many translations of his work. This poem is a pithy way to describe the world we inhabit. It calls attention to the global climate crisis that is manifest in annual catastrophic weather events around the world, at the same time as there are climate change deniers. It also speaks of the ways in which we have organized ourselves into systems of exploitation and oppression. Before reading this poem at a workshop with over sixty tenured professors in the room, I asked if they had ever felt attacked at their place of work. Have you

Poetry for Organizing

This special issue on Poetry for Organizing is not for everyone. Even though the original attempt was to create a compendium of the best poems for organizational scholars and practitioners, this is not a literary offering. Instead, it is a courageous demonstration of the possibilities of the many different ways poetry can be used as a lens for organizing, self and our place in organizations. This issue is an invitation for a select few curious and open-minded folks ready to explore the potential of poetry as a lens for making sense of organizing. It does this with examples from several of us who have explored this already, and with my personal journey in the process of co-creating this issue with them

Strategy Making in Nonprofi t Organizations: A Model and Case Studies (Environmental and Social Sustainability for Business Advanta)

Nonprofit Organizations need strategies to be effective, but the available tools for making strategy were developed primarily for business organizations. This book provides a model and several case studies for Strategy Making in Nonprofit Organizations. The strategy making model modifies the business practices of Strategy-Structure-Systems for the nonprofit context with a focus on Purpose-Processes-People that is more suitable to meet their unique challenges. In this book, the leaders of nonprofit organizations will find ways to better articulate the challenges that their organizations face for communicating with their business partners, donors and employees. As the demand for essential social services is growing and the budgets are declining, leaders and managers in both Nonprofit and Business organizations need the solutions offered in this book. Nonprofit Organizations face an external environment where demand outstrips their ability to meet it. They face competition in raising funds and resources to provide these services. They rely on processes to harness the creativity of their people in delivering to the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental impact. This book provides a bridge between business and nonprofit organizations

In vitro antimicrobial activity of certain plant products / seed extracts against multidrug resistant Propionibacterium acnes, Malassezia furfur, and aflatoxin producing Aspergillus flavus

Seed extracts of five different plants viz. Phoenix sylvestris, Tamarindus indica, Syzygium cumini, Manilkara zapota, and Annona squamosa, prepared by microwave assisted extraction (MAE) method were screened for their antimicrobial activity against various human pathogenic microbes. Extraction efficiency ranged from 6-24%. Antimicrobial activity of seed extracts was investigated against three yeasts (Candida albicans, Saccharomyces cerevisae, Malassezia furfur), one mold (Aspergillus flavus) and one anaerobic bacterium (Propionibacterium acnes) by broth dilution assay and minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was determined. Methanolic extract of T. indica and S. cumini inhibited 60% of test organisms. Amongst the microorganisms tested, the most resistant was found to be C. albicans and the most susceptible was M. furfur. Effect of eight seed extracts on aflatoxin production by A. flavus was also investigated. Ethanolic extract of A. squamosa caused 100% inhibition of aflatoxin production at 500 µg/mL

Preferential DPoS: A Scalable Blockchain Schema for High-Frequency Transaction

In the Blockchain consensus algorithm domain, the Delegated Proof of Stake or DPoS voting schema used a reputation-based voting approach to reach consensus and any user who has holdings can vote on which nodes should validate transactions on the network. A user\u27s voting power is determined by the size of holdings he or she stakes. In this study, we proposed a revised DPoS schema, the Preferential Delegated Proof of Stake (PDPoS), as a new variety of DPoS. This algorithm allows blockchain to have an L2 network on top of the existing network or mainnet. Users could choose to send the transaction request to either L2 or the mainnet for processing. This consensus schema would improve the network\u27s transaction speed by decongesting the mainnet and allow users to benefit from the capabilities of blockchain at a lesser cost

COMPARISON OF CERVICAL BIOPSY USING PUNCH BIOPSY FORCEPS VERSUS LOOP ELECTRODE

Context: The biopsy of cervix can be obtained by various methods with availability of newer modalities like loop electrode. Objectives: To compare the histo-pathological parameters and clinical outcome of cervical biopsy obtained using punch biopsy forceps versus loop electrode. Methods: Women attending OPD were screened for cervical pathology, and colposcopy was done for those who screened positive. Patients who required cervical biopsy after colposcopy were allocated into 2 group; one undergoing LEEP biopsy and other half biopsied with Punch forceps. During procedure patients were evaluated for the intra-op pain and bleeding and their severity. The histo- pathological diagnosis was carried out and the sample was studied for its size, adequacy, and presence of any thermal or crush artefacts. Result: The two methods of biopsy were comparable in intra-op parameters, except for the increased requirement for additional haemostasis in LEEP biopsy. There was no case of bleeding from biopsy site at the follow-up visit. LEEP biopsy was  associated with continued vaginal discharge more often than punch biopsy. An adequate sample for histopathological diagnosis was obtained in 91.25% of all cases.  The comparative findings were reflective of comparable efficacy of both methods in providing an acceptable tissue sample for diagnosis. Conclusion: After analysing and comparing the aforementioned parameters, we opined that neither method can be deemed clearly superior to the other as a cervical biopsy procedure. Keywords: Punch biopsy forceps; Loop electrode; Cervical biopsy

Supernumerary marker chromosome and global developmental delay: Role of microarray - case report and review of literature

Small supernumerary marker chromosomes (sSMCs) are defined as structurally abnormal chromosomes that cannot be identified or characterized by conventional karyotype analysis and are generally equal in size or smaller than chromosome 20. Here, we present the molecular characterization of an sSMCs derived from chromosome 15 in prenatal diagnosis in a 38-years-old femal

Local Experts in Social Media

The problem of finding topic experts on social networking sites has been a continued topic of research. This thesis addresses the problem of identifying local experts in social media systems like Twitter. Local experts are experts with a topical expertise that is centered around a particular location. This geographically-constrained expertise can be a significant factor for enhanced answering of local information needs (What is the best pub in College Station?), for interacting with local experts (e.g., in the aftermath of a disaster), and for accessing local communities. I developed a local expert finding system – called OLE (online local experts) – that leverages the crowd sourced location-topic labels provided by users of the popular Twitter service. Concretely, I mine a collection of 108 million tweets for evidence of local topics of discussion occurring with user-mentions and location pairs; based on this collection, I developed a learning-to-rank approach that incorporates topic-location entropy and a local expert perimeter for varying the expertise focal window. In comparison with alternative expert finding approaches, I find that OLE is quite effective in finding local experts and achieves a 37.72% increase in mean average precision and a 16.8% increase in NDCG scores, across a comprehensive set of queries

COMPARISON OF CERVICAL BIOPSY USING PUNCH BIOPSY FORCEPS VERSUS LOOP ELECTRODE

Context: The biopsy of cervix can be obtained by various methods with availability of newer modalities like loop electrode. Objectives: To compare the histo-pathological parameters and clinical outcome of cervical biopsy obtained using punch biopsy forceps versus loop electrode. Methods: Women attending OPD were screened for cervical pathology, and colposcopy was done for those who screened positive. Patients who required cervical biopsy after colposcopy were allocated into 2 group; one undergoing LEEP biopsy and other half biopsied with Punch forceps. During procedure patients were evaluated for the intra-op pain and bleeding and their severity. The histo- pathological diagnosis was carried out and the sample was studied for its size, adequacy, and presence of any thermal or crush artefacts. Result: The two methods of biopsy were comparable in intra-op parameters, except for the increased requirement for additional haemostasis in LEEP biopsy. There was no case of bleeding from biopsy site at the follow-up visit. LEEP biopsy was  associated with continued vaginal discharge more often than punch biopsy. An adequate sample for histopathological diagnosis was obtained in 91.25% of all cases.  The comparative findings were reflective of comparable efficacy of both methods in providing an acceptable tissue sample for diagnosis. Conclusion: After analysing and comparing the aforementioned parameters, we opined that neither method can be deemed clearly superior to the other as a cervical biopsy procedure. Keywords: Punch biopsy forceps; Loop electrode; Cervical biopsy