New Local Government System: A Step Towards Community Empowerment?

Failure of the central/provincial governments to adequately capture local preferences and provide basic services strengthened the case for a new local government system for delivery of public services along with the authority to impose fees, taxes, user charges, etc. to finance these services. The new System aims at transferring political, administrative and fiscal powers1 from higher tiers of the government to lower tiers (Figure 1) in order to bring governments closer to common citizens for greater accountability and better understanding of the needs and preferences of people. National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) was entrusted the task of designing a local government system which presented its first blue print in the form of “Devolution Plan 2000”. As a result of this exercise a new Local Government System has been installed in Pakistan on 14th August 2001 after the promulgation of Local Government Ordinance 2001 by all the four Provinces. The new System comprises a District Government or a City District Government and Zila Council in a district, Tehsil Municipal Administration and Tehsil Council in a tehsil (a Town Municipal Administration and Town Council in a town in a city district) and Union Administration and Union Council in a union. Village/Neighbourhood councils provide an interface with the lowest tier of the Local Government (Union Administration) with the community.

New Local Government System: A Step Towards Community Empowerment?

Failure of the central/provincial governments to adequately capture local preferences and provide basic services strengthened the case for a new local government system for delivery of public services along with the authority to impose fees, taxes, user charges, etc. to finance these services. The new System aims at transferring political, administrative and fiscal powers1 from higher tiers of the government to lower tiers (Figure 1) in order to bring governments closer to common citizens for greater accountability and better understanding of the needs and preferences of people. National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) was entrusted the task of designing a local government system which presented its first blue print in the form of “Devolution Plan 2000”. As a result of this exercise a new Local Government System has been installed in Pakistan on 14th August 2001 after the promulgation of Local Government Ordinance 2001 by all the four Provinces. The new System comprises a District Government or a City District Government and Zila Council in a district, Tehsil Municipal Administration and Tehsil Council in a tehsil (a Town Municipal Administration and Town Council in a town in a city district) and Union Administration and Union Council in a union. Village/Neighbourhood councils provide an interface with the lowest tier of the Local Government (Union Administration) with the community

E. coli-quantum dot bioconjugates as whole-cell fluorescent reporters for probing cellular damage

A quantum dot (QD) conjugated whole-cell E. coli biosensor (E. coli–QD bioconjugates) was developed as a new molecular tool for probing cellular damage. The E. coli–QD bioconjugates were viable and exhibited fluorescence emission at 585 nm. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis of E. coli–QD bioconjugates revealed that the QDs were immobilized on the cell-surfaces and the fluorescence emission from QDs present on cell-surfaces was visualized by confocal microscopic examination. The E. coli–QD bioconjugates were employed as whole-cell fluorescent reporters that were designed to function as fluorescence switches that turn-off when cellular damage occurs. In this study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were utilized as a model nanomaterial to probe cellular damage. Fluorescence spectra were recorded after the exposure of E. coli–QD bioconjugates with CNTs. We observed a strong correlation between fluorescence emission spectra, SEM and confocal microscopic analysis demonstrating that CNTs induced a dose and exposure time-dependent cellular toxicity. This toxicity mainly occurred by the physical interaction and cellular trafficking mechanisms that led to the collapse of the cellular structure and thus loss of fluorescence. The responses of E. coli–QD bioconjugates against CNTs were also visualized by simply exposing the cells to UV light and therefore rapid toxicity analysis and screening can be made. Our study demonstrated an easy and simple method to determine an important mechanistic perspective for the biological toxicity of chemicals or nanomaterials (NMs)

Biosensors for cardiac biomarkers detection: a review

The cardiovascular disease (CVD) is considered as a major threat to global health. Therefore, there is a growing demand for a range of portable, rapid and low cost biosensing devices for the detection of CVD. Biosensors can play an important role in the early diagnosis of CVD without having to rely on hospital visits where expensive and time-consuming laboratory tests are recommended. Over the last decade, many biosensors have been developed to detect a wide range of cardiac marker to reduce the costs for healthcare. One of the major challenges is to find a way of predicting the risk that an individual can suffer from CVD. There has been considerable interest in finding diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers that can be detected in blood and predict CVD risk. Of these, C-reactive protein (CRP) is the best known biomarker followed by cardiac troponin I or T (cTnI/T), myoglobin, lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A(2), interlukin-6 (IL-6), interlukin-1 (IL-1), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), myeloperoxidase (MPO) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) has been used to predict cardiovascular events. This review provides an overview of the available biosensor platforms for the detection of various CVD markers and considerations of future prospects for the technology are addressed

Prevalence and severity of depression among undergraduate students in Karachi, Pakistan: a cross sectional study

Purpose: To highlight the prevalence and severity of depression among undergraduate students in public and private universities in Karachi, Pakistan.Methods: In this cross-sectional study a total of 408 undergraduate students from both public and private universities in Karachi, Pakistan completed Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) questionnaire to appraise the presence and extent of depression among the participants. Their sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender and course of study as well as drug use data were also collected and analyzed.Results: Depression prevalence was 53.43 % (38.07 % for males and 61.00 % for females). A significant disparity in the prevalence of depression across ethnicity was observed. Less than 50 % (n = 163) of the students were satisfied with their duration of degree course work while 111 (27.20 %) participants were not sure about this. The intensity of depression increased with declining satisfaction level (Gamma = 0.264, p = 0.001) which affected the performance and results of students during their studies. A majority of the participants (89 %, n = 358) of our study have never used medicines to alter their mood.Conclusion: The findings of this study highlight the importance of understanding the unique strains and mental health effect of university education on undergraduate students, especially female students.Keywords: Depression, Undergraduate students, Mood alteration, Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS), Mental health, Risk assessmen

Generalization of Individual Differences in Second Language Learning

This commentary is based on the analyses of the participants’ responses provided in written form while filling the questionnaires. The purpose of the study was to identify and analyze factors in individuals’ experiences about second language acquisition.  The study was conducted through a research questionnaire. The questions were designed for particular outcomes needed for the research. The research was to find motivational, social, and demographic factors in learning second language. The research participants were the successful users of second language. The paper also discussed the different influences from society, and profession which are a support to learn second language or sometimes these influences work as hindrance. Questionnaire also dealt with the usefulness of language books and effectiveness of language teachers. The project involves 4 participants who filled in the answers. 50% of them have provided very short answers but the ideas are understandable and interpretable, the rest gave detailed responses which remained more supportive for the analyses. Over all it was to obtain a general view about the above mentioned influential factors which may result positive or negative during the process of second language acquisition.

PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF NILVADIPNE LIQUISOLID COMPACTS

The purpose of the present study is to develop a novel liquid solid technique which enhances the dissolution rate of water insoluble or poorly water soluble drugs of Nilvadipine, which belong to class II of BCS. Generally the liquisolid technique is based upon the admixture of drug loaded with non volatile solutions (or) liquid drug incorporated with required carrier and coating materials in order to obtain a dry, non adherent, free flowing and compressible powder. Various non volatile solvents used were Propylene glycol, Poly ethylene glycol. The solubility of drug in the non volatile solvents plays an important role in this formulation Avicel PH 102 and aerosil were used as carrier and coating materials. Super disintegrants were used to increase the dissolution rate.Evaluation tests such as Disintegration time, Friability, Hardness and in-vitro dissolution studies were conducted. Amongst all the formulations F14 was considered to be the best in which Propylene glycol is used and the drug release was found to be 97% in 10 min

PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF ETHYLCELLULOSE MICROSPHERES PREPARED BY SOLVENT EVAPORATION TECHNIQUE

Losartan is high specific angiotensin 2 type receptor antagonist with antihypertensive activity was formulated as microspheres by using Ethyl cellulose as carrier. These Ethyl cellulose microspheres were prepared by the solvent evaporation method. The prepared microspheres were subjected to various evaluation and in vitro release studies. Highest percentage of loading was obtained by increasing the amount of Losartan with respect to polymer. The particle sizes of the prepared microspheres were determined by optical microscopy and SEM analysis. The prepared microspheres had good spherical geometry with smooth surface as evidence by SEM. The in vitro release studies showed that Losartan microspheres of 1:5 ratios showed better sustained effect over a period of 12 hours

Educational Motives and Perceived Educational Consequences as Predictors of Facebook Usage

This study proposes a model and validates it with the help of uses and gratifications theory, displacement theory and the individual differences theory. The tenets of the proposed model are: the associations of the educational motives with Facebook use; the association of perceived consequences resulting from Facebook use with the Facebook use; the interactional effect of the weekly time patterns and gender for Facebook use; the interactional effect of the daily and weekly time patterns for the educational motives for Facebook use; and the interactional effect of the daily and weekly time patterns for the perceived consequences resulting from Facebook use among university students in Lahore. By using convenience sampling technique, students are selected from the population of educational institutions in Lahore. The variance explained in the dependent variable of motives for Facebook usage and the perceived consequences is 22.9%. Both variables of educational motives (β = .402) and the perceived consequences (β = .200) have made significant contribution to the prediction of Facebook usage but the former has made the unique one. Male students are using Facebook more than the female students (η2 = .01). The interaction effect of daily and weekly time patterns have small effects on educational motives (η2 = .038) and the perceived consequences (η2 = .032). Facebook is found empowering the students for the educational motives, however university students perceive that Facebook use has consequences when they use it for more than two hours in different parts of the day

Hepatitis B vaccination status of health care workers and their antiHBs titres - A cross sectional study

Back ground: The risk from occupational exposure to HBV infection is 2-4 times higher in HCW’s. A protective vaccine with a reported efficacy of 95% is available. Yet many HCW’s in developing countries remain non vaccinated, incompletely vaccinated or if vaccinated unaware of their post vaccination anti HBs status. Estimation of protective immune response following vaccination is essential to clear the misconceptions regarding booster dose of vaccine and non responder state which prevails among the HCW’s. Objective: The present study is designed to assess the hepatitis B vaccination rates in HCW’s and their antiHBs titres. Material and methods: A cross sectional study on 87 subjects was carried out at a tertiary care hospital by testing their sera for HBsAg & anti HBs levels. Results: None of the HCW’s were found to be HBsAg positive. Vaccination rate observed was 79%. Most vaccinated were the doctors and least the paramedics. Among doctors variation within the occupational groups was noticed. More number of males and young subjects were vaccinated and protected. Only 49% of the vaccinated HCW’s were vaccine compliant and 35% of these were protected. Factors like age, sex and time since last dose of vaccine influenced the anti HBs titres. None were aware of their anti HBs titres post vaccination. Conclusion: The study group involves only a small number of HCW’s but the findings are significant. Keeping in mind the annual global hepatitis B infection rates in HCW’s in developing countries we recommend the health care authorities to strengthen the existing educational programmes on Hepattis B infection which improves the awareness levels and thereby increases the vaccine rates. Further to make essential post vaccination assessment of antiHBs titres and its documentation to clear misconceptions regarding booster dose of vaccine