Power and hegemony in research supervision: A critical discourse analysis

This qualitative case study research aimed to investigate the notions of power and hegemony in research consultations around the construct of language ideologies. The study employed purposive sampling by selecting two MS (Education) research supervisees with their supervisors. It identified a social wrong of power and hegemony in research supervision practices and with a transformative spirit, hoped to bring about awareness and modifications in research supervision. Methodically, the study followed the analytical approach of Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (1989; 2003). The data were collected through observations and transcriptions of research consultation meetings and interviews of the participants. The textual analysis of case one revealed how language became a source of establishing asymmetrical power relations between the participants. Contrastingly, in case two the consultations were not hinged on language aspects and had more equality and homogeneity between the partners. The finding of the study indicated that language ideologies played a very important role in sustaining the dominant position of the powerful agent, that is, the supervisor. Based on the findings, it is hoped that this research would lead to more democratic styles of supervision and equity and emancipation in supervision as a social practice. Keywords: critical discourse analysis, power and hegemony, language ideologies, research supervision

Language Ideologies in a Business Institute: A Case Study of Linguistic and Socio-Cultural Realities

This case study explored the English language related ideologies of different management groups and student representatives at a business school of Karachi, Pakistan. The study tried to bring an insider’s perspective to the causes of certain language ideologies prevalent in the business school’s social structure, and the role language played in power relations between the main actors of the community. For this purpose, a sample of four research participants from each of the focussed management cadres was selected for study. Analysis of semi-structured interviews, administered on the participants, was done using Fairclough’s (2009) dialectical-relational approach of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The study suggested the prevalence of certain language ideologies that were manifested and latent in the discourses of the participants. These deeply rooted beliefs were predominantly patterned by centering authorities: language became a means for those in power to sustain their hegemony and maintain social stratification in society. Functionally, English played a stratifying role, and also was found to be extensively perceived as a commodity, a product that is to be acquired or attained. The study realised this social wrong of inequity and divide in a particular community, and on the basis of the findings, recommends a reorganizing of social structures into those of more inclusive and democratic ones for the operationalizing of equality and fairness in social practices

Landuse and Community-based Assessment of 2014 Flood Damages in Tehsil Phalia, Punjab

In this study the response and feedback from the flood-hit community of Phalia (Mandi Bahauddin) obtained through local interviews and filling of questionnaires have been analyzed. Secondary data were obtained from Pakistan meteorological and local revenue departments were also statistically analyzed. Several types of damages including houses, crops, diseases, economic loss, and livestock have been considered. Pre- and Post-flood changes in the landuse, by high resolution satellite data (Landsat 8 OLI) delineated coverage of inundation of 186.85 km2 area. It has been demonstrated that Phalia tehsil was severely damaged in 2014 rainfall induced flood in Chenab river which left lasting impacts on the socio-economic lives of local communities. The major damages experienced by the people of the study area included; house damages, crop damages, diseases, economic losses and livestock damages. It is necessary that government revises the flood prevention policies based on the community response to mitigate the disaste

Breach of Psychological Contract, Task Performance, Workplace Deviance: Evidence from Academia in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Pakistan

This study aims to examine the effects of breach of psychological contract on task performance, workplace deviance in higher educational institutions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. A conceptual framework has been developed based on previous findings examining the effect of breach of psychology contract on interpersonal and workplace deviance and ultimately on task performance. Survey data was collected from 225 faculty members of private sector universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was found that there was a negative relationship between psychological contract breach and task performance. Further, organizational deviance has partially and interpersonal deviance has fully mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and task performance. Findings, as usual have supported our expectations, but more so for interpersonal deviance and less so for organizational deviance. The present study is unique in many ways. On the basis of empirical analysis this study suggests that breach of psychological contract leads to low task performance. Few studies are conducted by examining these variables together. In addition, the present study has taken both interpersonal and organizational deviance as a mediator. Pakistan is under research country. This study has filled the gap by examining the effect of breach of psychological and its outcome in a novel culture of Pakistan

An overview on snake venom anti-cancer activity

Abstract: Snake venom instead of causing mortality and morbidity in human, is also therapeutically very crucial in treating various forms of cancer such as, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, leukemia etc. Different types of snake have different types of venom, inducing apoptosis, cytotoxicity, anti-proliferative activity, activating platelets by targeting platelet CLEC-2 and inhibiting the production of DNA and RNA. This review focuses on different types of snake venom having anti-cancer property

Are Growth Led Financing Decisions Causing Insolvency in Listed Firms of Pakistan?

We examine the relationship between growth opportunities and insolvency risk in a mediating framework through financing decisions for 330 listed firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) This study covers a data period of five years ranging from 2013 to 2017. Financing decisions used in this study involve capital structure decision and debt maturity decision. We applied robust clustered panel OLS regression to the data and found a negative relationship between growth opportunities and insolvency risk in all samples consisting of overall, large and small firms. Growth opportunities have a negative impact on the capital structure, but debt maturity was influenced positively. Financing decisions influenced the insolvency risk positively. We used Baron and Kenny’s (1986) approach to detect the intervening effects of financing decisions. Further, Sobel’s test used to check the significance of mediation. Partial mediation was found for the debt maturity ratio in the large and overall sample of firms. However, the capital structure did not mediate the relationship between growth opportunities and insolvency risk in this study

UBI-XGB: IDENTIFICATION OF UBIQUITIN PROTEINS USING MACHINE LEARNING MODEL

A recent line of research has focused on Ubiquitination, a pervasive and proteasome-mediated protein degradation that controls apoptosis and is crucial in the breakdown of proteins and the development of cell disorders, is a major factor.  The turnover of proteins and ubiquitination are two related processes. We predict ubiquitination sites; these attributes are lastly fed into the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) classifier. We develop reliable predictors computational tool using experimental identification of protein ubiquitination sites is typically labor- and time-intensive. First, we encoded protein sequence features into matrix data using Dipeptide Deviation from Expected Mean (DDE) features encoding techniques. We also proposed 2nd features extraction model named dipeptide composition (DPC) model. It is vital to develop reliable predictors since experimental identification of protein ubiquitination sites is typically labor- and time-intensive. In this paper, we proposed computational method as named Ubipro-XGBoost, a multi-view feature-based technique for predicting ubiquitination sites. Recent developments in proteomic technology have sparked renewed interest in the identification of ubiquitination sites in a number of human disorders, which have been studied experimentally and clinically.  When more experimentally verified ubiquitination sites appear, we developed a predictive algorithm that can locate lysine ubiquitination sites in large-scale proteome data. This paper introduces Ubipro-XGBoost, a machine learning method. Ubipro-XGBoost had an AUC (area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve) of 0.914% accuracy, 0.836% Sensitivity, 0.992% Specificity, and 0.839% MCC on a 5-fold cross validation based on DPC model, and 2nd 0.909% accuracy, 0.839% Sensitivity, 0.979% Specificity, and 0. 0.829% MCC on a 5-fold cross validation based on DDE model. The findings demonstrate that the suggested technique, Ubipro-XGBoost, outperforms conventional ubiquitination prediction methods and offers fresh advice for ubiquitination site identification

Tissue characterization of benign cardiac tumors by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, a review of core imaging protocol and benign cardiac tumors

Generally, cardiac masses are initially suspected on routine echocardiography. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is further performed to differentiate tumors from pseudo-tumors and to characterize the cardiac masses based on their appearance on T1/T2-weighted images, detection of perfusion and demonstration of gadolinium-based contrast agent uptake on early and late gadolinium enhancement images. Further evaluation of cardiac masses by CMR is critical because unnecessary surgery can be avoided by better tissue characterization. Different cardiac tissues have different T1 and T2 relaxation times, principally owing to different internal biochemical environments surrounding the protons. In CMR, the signal intensity from a particular tissue depends on its T1 and T2 relaxation times and its proton density. CMR uses this principle to differentiate between various tissue types by weighting images based on their T1 or T2 relaxation times. Generally, tumor cells are larger, edematous, and have associated inflammatory reactions. Higher free water content of the neoplastic cells and other changes in tissue composition lead to prolonged T1/T2 relaxation times and thus an inherent contrast between tumors and normal tissue exists. Overall, these biochemical changes create an environment where different cardiac masses produce different signal intensity on their T1- weighted and T2- weighted images that help to discriminate between them. In this review article, we have provided a detailed description of the core CMR imaging protocol for evaluation of cardiac masses. We have also discussed the basic features of benign cardiac tumors as well as the role of CMR in evaluation and further tissue characterization of these tumors

Substantial and sustained reduction in under-5 mortality, diarrhea, and pneumonia in Oshikhandass, Pakistan : Evidence from two longitudinal cohort studies 15 years apart

Funding Information: Study 1 was funded through the Applied Diarrheal Disease Research Program at Harvard Institute for International Development with a grant from USAID (Project 936–5952, Cooperative Agreement # DPE-5952-A-00-5073-00), and the Aga Khan Health Service, Northern Areas and Chitral, Pakistan. Study 2 was funded by the Pakistan US S&T Cooperative Agreement between the Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) (No.4–421/PAK-US/HEC/2010/955, grant to the Karakoram International University) and US National Academies of Science (Grant Number PGA-P211012 from NAS to the Fogarty International Center). The funding bodies had no role in the design of the study, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Language Ideologies in a Business Institute: A Case Study of Linguistic and Socio-Cultural Realities

This case study explored the English language related ideologies of different management groups and student representatives at a business school of Karachi, Pakistan. The study tried to bring an insider’s perspective to the causes of certain language ideologies prevalent in the business school’s social structure, and the role language played in power relations between the main actors of the community. For this purpose, a sample of four research participants from each of the focussed management cadres was selected for study. Analysis of semi-structured interviews, administered on the participants, was done using Fairclough’s (2009) dialectical-relational approach of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The study suggested the prevalence of certain language ideologies that were manifested and latent in the discourses of the participants. These deeply rooted beliefs were predominantly patterned by centering authorities: language became a means for those in power to sustain their hegemony and maintain social stratification in society. Functionally, English played a stratifying role, and also was found to be extensively perceived as a commodity, a product that is to be acquired or attained. The study realised this social wrong of inequity and divide in a particular community, and on the basis of the findings, recommends a reorganizing of social structures into those of more inclusive and democratic ones for the operationalizing of equality and fairness in social practices