From Cost to Strategic Focused Offshore Information Systems Investment: The Impact Of Specialized Trainings In The Context Of National Culture

This study identifies national culture, as an important and neglected factor that moderates this relationship and establishes that the trainings provided needs to accommodate local culture to become more successful and have the desired impact on rate of innovation of the offshore location

Footprint of Calcium on Regulation of Extracellular Calcium-Sensing Receptor and Connexin26

Calcium (Ca2+) functions as a primary and secondary messenger regulating crucial cellular processes. We study two central membrane proteins, extracellular calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) and connexin26 (Cx26) gap junction (GJ) channel, that are regulated by Ca2+ and play critical roles in regulating Ca2+ homeostasis and communication between the intra- and extra- cellular milieu. Mutations in CaSR are associated with abnormal Ca2+ homeostasis, hypoparathyroidism, myocardial infarction and cancers. Similarly, mutations in Cx26 are implicated in many hereditary deafness and dermatological disorders. The role of Ca2+ in CaSR biosynthesis, CaSR mediated intracellular Ca2+ signaling, Cx26 regulation and tuning of their regulators in biological and pathological is reported, however, the knowledge of exact molecular mechanism is obscure due to challenges associated with membrane proteins. In this dissertation, we first report the discovery of 98 novel putative CaSR interactors using co-immunoprecipitation, mass-spectrometry and confocal imaging. Our findings suggest that extracellular Ca2+ dependent CaSR mediated intracellular signaling facilitates ER quality control and trafficking by upregulating the interaction with proteins affiliated with ubiquitination, chaperoning and glycosylation. Next, the cooperative activation of CaSR by Ca2+, Mg2+ and aromatic amino acids is validated in wild type CaSR in HEK293 cells. CaSR mutations at conserved metal binding sites reduce Ca2+/Mg2+ evoked intracellular Ca2+ mobilization and Ca2+ oscillation. This work further uses single cell imaging, immunoassay and sequencing to report tissue specific expression and differential capabilities of cations and drugs to tune CaSR mediated signaling in prostate (PCa) and thyroid cancer cells. We report a presence of wild type CaSR in PCa cell using RT-PCR. Additionally, proteomics and gene ontology show differential proteostasis between prostate cancer and HEK293 cells. Finally, this study endeavored at expressing and purifying a challenging protein, Cx26, and established binding affinity for Tb3+ and Ca2+ as 1.8 µM and 37 mM, respectively. The N-terminal lobe of CaM was found to bind Ca2+ tighter by 2.5-folds greater than C-lobe in the presence of Cx26p1-21. Our study on role of Ca2+ on regulation of CaSR and Cx26 allows for greater understanding of their function and provides avenue for potential therapeutic targets

Early Information Access to Alleviate Emergency Department Congestion

Alleviating Emergency Department (ED) congestion results in shorter hospital stay which not only reduces the cost of medical procedure but also increase the hospital performance. Length of patient stay is used to determine the hospital performance. Organization Information Processing (OIPT) Theory is used to explain the impact of information access and availability on the information processing need and ability of a hospital. Technical devices such as RFID that works as “Auto Identification tags” is suggested to increase the information availability as well as the information processing capability of the hospitals. This study suggests that the OIPT needs to be further broken down into its entity form and then the impact of these entities is measured separately. On the other hand, institutional factors such as employee behavior towards the new technology is studied to analyze the impact of human factors in the implementation of these technical devices in the ED procedures. It can be implied from this study that early information access does increase the use of supporting EMR implementation. However, the importance of the use of EMR decreases with time on hospital performance. Moreover, other factors such as management policies related to IT positively moderates the relationship between information availability and the processing capability of a hospital ED

A Comparative Study of Self-congruency Models for Self-disclosure on Social Networking Sites

Self-congruency is the level of match or mismatch between the self-concept of an individual and the image of a product, brand, or service that an individual consumes or has the intention of consuming. The four most widely used types of self-concepts in the literature are: actual, ideal, social, and ideal social self-concepts. Self-congruency with social networking sites has been shown to affect the attitudinal, intentional, and behavioral aspects of self-disclosure. Previous research in the field has not examined such effects of self-congruencies based on different self-concepts. Based on theory of planned behavior and self-congruency theory, we developed and analyzed four self-congruency models for self-disclosure on social networking sites. All the models showed good fit and all the hypothesized relationships among the constructs of the models were significant. Social self-congruency model outperformed the other models based on Akaike Information Criterion

Service Quality Improvement through Waiting Time Reduction in a Multi-Facility Healthcare Center Without an Appointment System

This study aims to improve the service after making the optimization of current workflow by reducing waiting time. In addition to that, this paper also provides means to identify how resources can be better utilized by hospitals in emerging economies to gain higher performances

Selective Breeding to Improve Productive and Reproductive Performances and Survivability of Indigenous Sakini Chicken

Indigenous chickens are quite popular in Family Poultry Production System (FPPS) in Nepal, but are constrained with their low productive performance. The present study evaluated the productive and reproductive performance of Sakini chicken in different filial generations and sexes. In addition, research also aimed at understanding the effect of generations on above performances. Initially, base populations (G-0) of Sakini were maintained by collecting eight weeks old birds from different agro-ecologial zones of Nepal. Performance of the birds of G-0 was evaluated based on weekly body weight (12-24 weeks), laying performance, fertility, hatchability, hatch weight and survivability. Selected birds of base population (G-0) were used to produce first (G-1), second (G-2) and third (G-3) generations through selective breeding in each generation. Similarly, body weights at hatching, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 20 week and 24 weeks were significantly (p<0.001) improved from G0 to G3 and were also significantly (p<0.001) differ for sex (males were always heavier than females). Likewise, there was significant (p<0.05) improvement in egg production (per hen per year), age at first lay (days), body weight at sexual maturity, egg number and egg weight at 90 days of laying in progressive generations. Fertility, hatchability and survivability significantly (p<0.05) improved in selected generations in comparison to base population, whereas, no significant difference was obtained within the different selected population. Thus, indigenous Sakini chicken under this experiment performed better with respect to survivability, fertility and hatchability in later generations that provides ample scope of advancing selective breeding activities within the indigenous population in order to bring significant improvement in the overall productive performance of Sakini chicken in Nepal

Breeds and Breeding System of Indigenous and Crossbred Goats in Nepal

Goats are the indispensable component of rural economy in Nepal where 10.98 million goats accounting for 45.3% of total ruminants contribute to 20.3% of the total meat production and 49.2 million US dollar in the national economy. Being popular as “poor man’s cow” and “living cheque,” they significantly contribute to food, nutritional, and economic security of the marginalized farmers creating employment opportunities in the country. This chapter has tried to review the existing breeds, their breeding systems, challenges and way forward to enhance production and productivity of goats. Findings revealed that Nepal is endowed with four major indigenous genetic resources of goats and their crosses with Boer, Jamnapari, Barbari, Sirohi, etc. Occasionally, native goat breeds of Nepal were crossed with Kiko and Damascus as well. Breeding of goats in Nepal is mainly based on selection, pure breeding within indigenous flock, and crossbreeding to the available exotic breeds. There have been some biotechnological approaches applied in goat breeding and evaluation of native breeds. Estrus synchronization followed by artificial insemination is currently being practiced. Goats, being the most popular and easy source of household income and family nutrition in Nepal, could be the important source of national revenue provided with improved breeding and other husbandry practices

PCR Based Genotyping of Lulu Cattle of Nepal for A1, A2 Type Beta-caseins

Lulu is an indigenous breed of cattle (Bos taurus) found in high altitude regions of western Nepal. Population of Lulu cattle has been declining due to introgression with other exotic breeds to increase milk productivity. Here we aimed at finding potential approach for conserving Lulu cattle and its assets by studying the milk contents and investigating which variant of beta-casein protein is present in this breed. Beta caseins are an abundant protein in cow milk with A1 and A2 being the most common genetic variants of this protein. Consumption of A1 type of milk has numerous health-related complications whereas A2 type of milk has numerous human health promoting factors. We used restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) for determining the A1 and A2 variant of beta casein in Lulu cattle. For performing DNA extraction, we collected (n = 18) blood samples of Lulu from Mustang and (n=17) Nepal Agriculture research council farm. The amplified fragments in 3% agarose at 251bp and 213bp respectively confirmed the presence of both A1 and A2 gene in Lulu; however, A2 was of greater abundance. Our study indicated that Lulu has A2 variant of beta-casein predominantly. The gene frequency of A1A1 is 0, A1A2 is 0.06 and A2A2 is 0.94. We further found that the allele frequency of A1 and A2 is 0.03 and 0.97 respectively. We designed special primer for sequencing CSN2 genes since A2 type beta casein gene was predominantly seen on Lulu. The sequencing result further supports our RFLP result as most of our samples have “C” nucleotide SNP in amplified CSN2 gene sequence. The Chi-square value of the current study is 0.04 which supports Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium inferring that Lulu cattle are still in the pure state, where there is no genetic introgression with the exotic breed for the sake of improvement of productivity

Efficacy and Toxicity of Different Forms of Asparaginases Against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Review

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a form of blood cancer that affects white blood cells and is among the most common forms of leukemia with children and adolescents showing the highest number of cases. Most treatment protocols include chemotherapy using asparaginase. Asparaginase converts asparagine to aspartic acid and ammonia. Unlike normal, healthy cells, cancerous cells depend on asparagine for their growth. When these cells are deprived of asparagine by the action of the enzyme, the cancer cells selectively die. As of date, several forms of asparaginases are commercially available and are administered in ALL therapy. But due to limited study, it will be early and inaccurate to predict which forms of the enzymes are better. In this review, we aim to compare the efficacy and toxicity of four different asparaginases—native Escherichia coli asparaginase, PEG Escherichia coli asparaginase, Erwinia chrysanthemi asparaginase and a recombinant Escherichia coli asparaginase—used in ALL therapy in children and adolescents using available clinical trial data. PubMed and Clinical trial.org databases were used to select studies. Asparaginase activity, toxicity, anti-asparaginase antibody level and event-free, overall survival was compared for different asparaginases. Seventeen randomized and non-randomized controlled trials were included. Evidence was insufficient to ascertain which asparaginase is the best. PEG Escherichia coli asparaginase seems to be better with a high activity among the treated patients but there remains high toxicity for all available asparaginases. This study highlights a need to discover alternative sources of asparaginase from the organisms, which are evolutionarily distant from Escherichia coli and Erwinia chrysanthemi with high higher enzyme activity and reduced toxicity

Intraarticular versus intravenous tranexemic acid in reducing blood loss after primary total knee arthroplasty

Background: One of the substantial complications of total knee arthroplasty is major blood loss. Postoperative blood loss can range up to 2000 ml and 10-38% of patients may require blood transfusion. Among the sundry methods of preventing this prob, tranexamic acid, an anti-fibrinolytic, is one of the most effective options. It can be administered directly into the blood or injected locally. The purpose of this study was to compare the hemostatic effects of intraarticular versus intravenous administration of tranexamic acid in primary total knee arthroplasty. Methods: A prospective comparative observational study was done from done September 2020 to February 2022 at Civil Service Hospital, Kathmandu. 64 patients randomized into two groups: an intraarticular tranexamic acid group (31 patients who received 3.0 grams of intraarticular tranexamic acid) and intravenous tranexamic acid group (31 patients who received 15 mg/kg intravenous tranexamic acid in two instances). The primary measure was the amount of hemoglobin loss. Secondary outcomes included comparison of hemoglobin level pre- and post- operatively at first and fifth day, drain volume at 48 hours and amount of blood transfusion. There were no significant differences in demographics or preoperative laboratory values between the groups. Results: The baseline data, preoperative hemoglobin, and tourniquet time were similar in both groups. Hemoglobin at first and fifth operative day and drain volume at 48 hours were measured in both categories. There was no significant difference in perioperative blood loss, drain volume, rates of allogeneic blood transfusion between the two groups.  No any thromboembolic complications occurred. Conclusions: Intra-articular administration of tranexamic acid was found to be as effective and safe as intra-venous administration in reducing blood loss in primary total knee arthroplasty