Spirituality and nursing: an Ismaili perspective on holistic nursing care

This article seeks to describe a professional, personal, and cultural understanding of spirituality in nursing care. It revisits and refines the many concept clarifications of spirituality in our practice discipline, while reflecting on the potential meanings and learnings from Ismaili tenets and principles within a personal nursing practice. Through a review of mainstream literature in conjunction with nontraditional literature, the implicit is made explicit in terms of similarities and differences, as well as opportunities for further exploration. The summary brings forward the persistent gaps and questions on critical areas such as creating the place and operationalizing of spirituality. These continue to challenge and intrigue nurses seeking spiritual comfort for both themselves and their clients

Quality Assurance Self-assessment: A Catalyst at Aga Khan University

This article describes the establishment of the Aga Khan University’s Network of Quality Assurance and Improvement in promoting the principles of quality in its programmes. As an international university, the experiences and lessons learned have the potential to inform quality assurance and improvement in similar contexts. The authors reflect on past attempts to improve the quality of educational offerings, which were primarily traditional quality assurance audits. With the advent of the Inter-University Council for East Africa self-assessment process, the next generation of quality assurance and improvement was launched for the Aga Khan University programmes. They found the self-assessment process effective in changing attitudes towards quality enhancement and implementation of improvement plans, because it created ownership in the process. Practically, self-assessment is an important tool for academic quality assurance providing critical feedback, and catalysing action. The article will be useful for those establishing quality teaching and learning units across multi-site, multi-campus universities, especially in resource challenged environments

Assessing the Cognitive Domain through MCQs: Critical to Quality Assurance in Higher Education

While establishing assessment methods as a critical element of quality assurance, one must not lose sight of the intent to measure both expected learning outcomes and intended programme objectives. The achievement of quality assessment is rooted in ensuring that the content and approaches to delivery produce graduates and programmes which are high quality. One of the most common strategies to assessing higher order cognitive domain is via Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs). In this paper we will reflect on a quality assurance effort to ensure that this strategy was appropriate (doing the right thing), necessary (for the right reasons) and sufficient (achieving the desired results) in meeting the requirements. An exemplar of a continuing professional development approach to the constructing, measuring and evaluation of MCQs is provided, which emphasised the imperative of both faculty (peer) and organisational commitment to the process and achieving the desired product of competent and successful graduates

Translation of research instruments: research processes, pitfalls and challenges

Multilingual and multi-ethnic societies are becoming the norm in the era of globalisation. Given the cultural diversity and multiple languages spoken in many countries, healthcare researchers (including nurses) are challenged to use psychometrically sound research instruments that are culturally and linguistically sensitive. Most psychometrically sound research instruments have been developed and their properties assessed in English-speaking populations. A literature review was performed to understand the process of translation, use of qualitative and quantitative methods to assess the quality of translation, and lastly, to identify strategies to overcome the challenges of the translation process. One-way translation was observed to be the most utilised method. Translation methods and processes have many challenges, but applying relevant strategies could reduce errors and pitfalls

Fine structure of thyroid gland in wild caught female bat Taphozous kachhensis (Dobson) during reproductive cycle

AbstractThe thyroid gland has long been recognized as an important modulator of reproductive function. Both hyper- and hypo-thyroidism are associated with reproductive dysfunction and infertility. In addition, thyroid hormones appear to play a key role in the expression of events that underlie seasonal reproductive cycles. Despite the considerable information is available on the histology of thyroid gland in some of the bats, literature related to study is very few, and further information available on the ultrastructure is also scanty. The specimen of Taphozous kachhensis was collected from Ambai Nimbi. Many collections were made during the breeding season so as to coincide with the time of reproductive cycle and to get an accurate pregnancy record. Thyroid is removed from the bat and cut into 1–2mm piece and immersed in fresh ice-cold 3% gluteraldehyde solution for 2–4h and send for further process. The thyroid gland is more active during estrus than the pregnancy and lactation. The cell organelles observed in follicular cell of thyroid gland indicate more synthetic activity. While during pregnancy and lactation the thyroid gland is not synthetically active but the appearance of more lysosomal bodies during pregnancy indicate the utilization of stored colloid and release of thyroid hormone in blood stream. The parafollicular cells are more developed during pregnancy and lactation than estrus as indicated by ultrastructural characteristics. These cells may secrete calcitonin, serotonin, and somatostatin and may be responsible for controlling the seasonal changes in plasma calcium concentration in this bat

A Low Phase Noise Wide-Tuning Range Class-F VCO Based on a Dual-Mode Resonator in 65nm CMOS

A Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) is a critical building block in the design of current frequency synthesizers for RF system applications. State-of-the-art operation defines that an oscillator should have the best spectral purity while consuming low amount of power for a wide tuning range. With this in mind, this work presents a low phase noise wide tuning range ClassF VCO using a dual-mode resonator. In comparison to other conventional wideband oscillators, the proposed capacitively/inductively-coupled resonator will integrate the benefits of Class-F voltage control oscillators and dual-mode switching networks to obtain simultaneous low phase noise and wide-tuning range. The proposed structure, prototyped in 65nm TSMC CMOS technology, shows a 2.14 – 4.22GHz continuous tuning range, phase noise figure-of-merit (FoM) of 192.7dB at 2.3GHz and better than 188dB across the entire operating frequency range. The oscillator consumes 15-16.4mW from a 0.6V supply and occupies an active area of 0.7mm^2 . In conclusion, the proposed resonator achieves 2- 3dB phase noise improvement while achieving 65% overall tuning range when compared to a typical class-F VCO architecture

Drug utilization for common skin diseases: an outpatient based study

Background: Drug utilization studies are useful for understanding the pattern of drug use in any particular healthcare set-up. This data gives an insight to improve the medical treatment at different layers in the health system. The oobjective of the present study was to assess drug utilization patterns by using core prescribing indicators of WHO and to assess most commonly observed skin disease in Dermatology out patients department (OPD) of tertiary care hospital.Methods: 246 prescriptions from Dermatology OPD were audited. Common skin diseases and the prescribing patterns were analysed from the prescriptions.Results: Average 2.4 drugs per prescription were seen in this study. 38.7%  drugs were from National Essential Drug List of India. All the drugs were prescribed by brand names. The fixed dose combinations accounted for 20.6% drugs prescribed. Dosage, dose and duration of treatment were written for 100% of prescriptions. Around 44 different skin diseases were diagnosed amongst 246 patients predominantly cutaneous fungal infections, acne, dermatitis, eczema and psoriasis. About 591 different drugs were used mainly corticosteroids (21%), antibiotics (17%), anti-allergic (16%), antifungals (11%). Common skin conditions receiving corticosteroids were dermatitis (9.9%), eczema (9.1%). Antibiotics (17%), antifungals (11%) and antivirals (1%) were commonly used antimicrobial agents. 55.2% drugs were administered topically while 44.6% received orally.Conclusions: Prescriptions revealed a higher incidence of fungal and bacterial infections. All the medications were prescribed rationally. All prescriptions had proper dosage form, frequency of administration, duration of therapy and diagnosis. However, prescriber should be motivated for prescription of generic drugs and those from essential drug list

Analysis and Seasonal Variation of Physico-Chemical Parameters of Gawrala Lake and Vinjasan Lake of Bhadrawati, District-Chandrapur (M.S.), India.

The paper deals with the physico-chemical parameters of Gawrala lake and Vinjasan lake in Bhadrawati of Chandrapur district. Monthly changes in physical and chemical parameters such as Air temperature, Water temperature, Transparency, Conductivity, pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Free Carbon Dioxide, Alkalinity, Total Hardness, Calcium Hardness, Magnesium Hardness, Chloride, Biological Oxygen Demand, Chemical Oxygen Demand, Phosphate, Sulphate and Nitrate were analyzed for a period of two year from February 2013 to January 2015. In the present investigation, the higher value of carbon dioxide, total alkalinity, phosphate, sulphate and nitrate in Gawrala lake indicates its polluted nature. On the other hand, the lowest values of the above parameters in Vinjasan lake show its non-polluted nature