Ultraviolet Radiation Effects On Rotifers

The purpose of this investigation was to study ultraviolet radiation effects on rotifers. The rotifer studied was Philodina acuticornis odiosa Milne. Isolation cultures were used to grow the rotifers individually in separate U-plate depressions. The source of ultraviolet radiation consisted of four mercury germicidal lamps used in combination to deliver a uniform flux of 315 uW/cm2 over the sample. Five groups of rotifers, one control and four experimental groups of 96 each, were used. The rotifers used were 2-10 hours of age at the beginning of the experiment. The experimental groups were exposed to uv radiation for 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 9 minutes. The mean lifetime of each of the control, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, and 9 minutes irradiated groups was 20.4 days, 19.1 days, 17.1 days, 11.5 days, and 6.3 days respectively. No specific theory, nor the mechanism involved is given to explain these uv radiation effects on rotifers. From the data, it is concluded that some radiation shortens the mean lifetimes of rotifers and that there is a threshold exposure after which the survival of the rotifer changes drastically

Neutrosophic Soft Graphs

The aim of this paper is to propose a new type of graph called neutrosophic soft graphs. We have established a link between graphs and neutrosophic soft sets. Basic operations of neutrosophic soft graphs such as union, intersection and complement are defined here. The concept of strong neutrosophic soft graphs is also discussed in this paper

POSTPARTUM HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AFTER DIFFERENT MODES OF DELIVERY AMONG WOMEN IN PAKISTAN: THE NEGLECTED LINK FOR BETTER MATERNAL and CHILD HEALTH

Objective: The present study was designed to evaluate women postpartum quality of life after different modes of delivery in Pakistan.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used. A pre-validated tool SF-36 was self-administered to a sample of 382 women in the postpartum period (6-8 w, 10-12 w, 14-16 w,>9 mo,>15 mo) undergone through elective/emergency cesarean sections or normal vaginal delivery and had delivered a single live child. After data collection, data was cleaned coded and entered in SPSS version 21.0. Descriptive statistics comprising of frequency and percentages was calculated. The non-parametric tests including Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Walis (p ≥ 0.05) were performed to find out the difference among different variables.Results: Comparison of HRQOL domains by mode of delivery using Mann-Whitney test demonstrated a significant difference (p=0.01) between normal delivery and cesarean section. Women undergoing normal delivery had significantly higher scores as compared to women having cesarean section. Also, a significant difference (p=0.027) among HRQOL scores was observed between working women and house wives and as well who had better socioeconomic status (p=0.018).Conclusion: The results of the present study concluded that postpartum quality of life of most of the women undergoing normal vaginal delivery was better as compared to women undergoing cesarean sections in twin cities of Pakistan. Surgical intervention during cesarean section might lead to consistent postpartum pain, inability to cope with needs of newborn and family which in turn can reduce postpartum quality of life among women

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Linking Adverbials in Pakistani English

Linking adverbials are used to make speech and writing logically connected and have been considered important writing tools in English language. The present study has explored and compared the frequencies and patterns of usage of linking adverbials (LAs henceforth) in native and non-native Englishes.  It examines the distinctive arrangements of LAs adopted by non-native speakers of English in Pakistan and compare them with the patterns usually adopted by the speakers of three native varieties (i.e. U.K, USA and Australia) and three non-native varieties (i.e. Japanese, Chinese, and Singaporean). The present research is conducted using corpus methodology in order to maintain accuracy and preciseness of the results. The results of the present study have revealed that Pakistani writers use more additive, summative and contrastive type of linking adverbials as compared to transantial and resultative LAs. Moreover, the contrastive LA but is higher in Pakistani writings than any other summative or additive LA

Motivasjon på arbeidsplassen: En kvalitativ studie om hvilken betydning relasjonen mellom leder og medarbeider har for medarbeiderens motivasjon

Tema for denne masteroppgaven er motivasjon og ledelse. Formålet er å undersøke sammenhengen mellom relasjonen mellom leder og medarbeider og medarbeiderens motivasjon. Det er dermed et særlig fokus på medarbeiderperspektivet. Konteksten for denne oppgaven er hjemmetjenesten, der hjemmesykepleie og praktisk bistand er sett under ett. Oppgavens problemstilling er: Hvordan fremmes motivasjon hos medarbeidere ved hjemmetjenesten? Det teoretiske grunnlaget tar utgangspunkt i de overnevnte temaene. Motivasjonsteoriene oppgaven bygger på er selvbestemmelsesteorien, jobbkarakteristikamodellen og tofaktorteorien. For å utdype det relasjonelle fokuset innen ledelse presenteres relasjonsledelse, transformasjonsledelse og LMX. Oppgaven har en kvalitativ tilnærming. Det er gjennomført dybdeintervjuer med fem medarbeidere ved ulike hjemmetjenester. Datamaterialet er analysert gjennom systematisk tekstkondensering. Undersøkelsen viser at relasjonen mellom leder og medarbeider har betydelig effekt på medarbeiderens motivasjon. Samtlige informanter viser til at en god relasjon med leder har positive effekter på motivasjonen, og der relasjonen ikke opplevdes som god ga dette uheldige virkninger på motivasjonen. Studien viser at tilstedeværende ledere som tilbyr veiledning, støtte og råd har gode relasjoner og motiverer sine medarbeidere. Sammenhengen mellom forventet tilstedeværelse og motivasjon ble påvirket av leders rolleavklaring. Ledere som selv inkluderer medarbeidere bidrar også til motivasjon. Dette samspillet påvirker medarbeidernes opplevelse av arbeidsoppgavene, ulike organisatoriske prosesser og beslutninger, og var også viktig for deres utvikling. Ledere som gir både anerkjennende tilbakemeldinger og tilbakemeldinger ved feil og avvik bidrar også til medarbeidernes utvikling. Videre viser funnene at ledere som har fokus på de sosiale aspektene ved at de blir kjent med medarbeidere som personer, og skaper samhold i gruppen har gode relasjoner og påvirker medarbeidernes ytelse. Funnene er diskutert og mulige praktiske konsekvenser og forslag til videre forskning er presentert

A Comparison of Selected Biomechanical Parameters of Spike Serves between Intervarsity and Intercollegiate Volleyball Players

The purpose of this study was to compare the selected biomechanical parameters of spike service between intervarsity and intercollegiate level volleyball players. Twelve (6 Intervarsity and 6 Intercollegiate level) male volleyball players were selected as the subjects for this study from Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India. The mean age, height, body weight, arm length and leg length of intervarsity players were 22.25 years (SD 0.94), 178.33 cm (1.06), 69.67kg (1.29), 59.74 cm (1.05) and 87.74 (1.73) respectively, whereas intercollegiate players were 21.92 years (SD 0.66), 173.56 cm (1.65), 67.50 kg (1.38), 57.17 (1.25) and 86.32 (1.83) respectively. All subjects were right-handed volleyball players. The players were allowed to have warm-up and trials. Each subject was asked to do the spike service. Five services were recorded from one side of the body with a high speed camcorder (Canon Legria HF S10) operating at 1/2000 with a frame rate of 60 frames per second. Data were collected from the movement onset until the ball crosses the net (successful). The camcorder was placed on a tripod at the height of 6 feet on the right angle of the subjects at a distance of 12 meters away to the side-line. Recorded data were digitized with the help of Silicon Coach Pro7 motion analysis software. The selected kinematics variables were ball height, jump height, hand velocity and ball velocity. The other segmental angles were also be studied in this study those were ankle angle, knee angle, hip angle, shoulder angle, elbow angle and wrist angle. The t-test was used for statistical analysis of the data by using SPSS-18 version software. The results revealed that insignificant difference exits between intervarsity and intercollegiate level male volleyball players in the spike serve performance

Genre Analysis of Business Emails Written by Pakistani Employees: A Case Study in Pakistani Organizational Context

In the wake of rapid advancement of technology, the medium, most widely used for business communication practices by Pakistani employees is electronic mails (emails). This quantitative study aims at analyzing generic features of business emails written by Pakistani employees working in an organization located in Pakistan. The sample text comprised one hundred English business emails exchanged between Pakistani employees and their business counterparts. Analysis was made on macro and micro level, Macro level analysis constituted the investigation of Move and step analysis of the selected corpus by applying   a genre-based approach established by Swales (1990) and Bhattia (1993).  Micro level analysis aimed to explore the lexico-grammatical choices opted by Pakistani writers to operationalize their communicative practices. Seven moves with their realization in one or more steps were identified in emails written by Pakistani employees. Following Louhaila-Salminen, et al (2005), three types of business Email genre were identified in accordance with different communicative purposes they expressed. The results revealed that three types of genre showed variation at the level of steps of Move 4, therefore, Bhattia’s (1993) model was modified to accommodate the genre specific and culture specific differences. The investigation of lexico-grammatical features in corpus led to many interesting findings. Pakistani writers tend to make a frequent use of “please” and “kindly” in Move3 Soliciting/providing information. It implies their concern about the addressee’s negative face and a sense of consciousness to promote an air of warmth and geniality at work places. An increasing tendency of writing concise and shorter emails replete with contractions and abbreviations is also observed inferring the closeness of email data with spoken text instead of the written text. The study emphasized the use of language in real business situations. It offers valuable implications for students of English for business purposes (EBP), teaching staff, material developers and business stakeholders. Keywords: genre analysis, business correspondence, business emails, communicative purpose, move/steps, lexico-grammatical features

An evaluation of a STEM summer undergraduate research internship scheme : student-perceived learning gains

The organisation of a STEM-wide summer undergraduate research internship scheme to ensure equal opportunities for all students is reported. Student engagement in the internship programme is much greater in the Biological, Pharmaceutical and Chemical Sciences (142 applications in 2016) than in Engineering and Computing (30 applications in 2016). To evaluate the impact of the scheme, previous interns were surveyed about their perceived learning gains from doing an internship. Twenty three responses were received from 46 previous interns. The greatest gains were reported for key skills such as: project and time management and working independently. Though the number of responses was small, engineering interns reported lower perceived learning gains than science interns. The survey indicated that perceived gains in key skills such as oral presentation and scientific writing were not rated very highly. In addition, more oral presentation and writing a final report were rated amongst the lowest for changes that might improve the learning gain from doing an internshi

Cultural Representation in ESL Textbooks in Pakistan?A Case Study of “Step Ahead 1”

The issue of culture inculcation in EFL/ESL learning and teaching has gained attention in ‘World Englishes’ scenario along with the voices of ‘Glocalization’ (Tiplady, 2003), acculturation and international culture, advocating the concepts of the amalgamation of global and local aspects of a phenomena, the mixing up of learner’s native and target culture and overall world culture as a whole respectively. There are two views regarding the cultural representation in ESL/EFL learning and teaching; the source culture i.e. learners’ native culture should be presented or only the exposure to target culture i.e. the culture of the countries where English is spoken as first language should be given. The present study is an attempt to highlight the cultural representation in ESL textbook using the model presented by Byram et al. (1994). The results reveal that the major focus of the textbook Step Ahead 1 is non-native culture, inadequate insufficient inter-cultural harmony is found in it and the least consideration has been given to the source culture, which is likely to alienate the learners from their own culture. The researchers argue that there should be ‘glocalized’ approach in such a sensitive issue and conclude with some suggestions that the books used as ESL textbooks should contain some aspects of both the target and source culture and there should be the intercultural harmony as well. Keywords: culture, source culture, target culture, ESL textbook