Forecasting Inflation: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Model

This study compares the forecasting performance of various Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models by using time series data. Primarily, The Box-Jenkins approach is considered here for forecasting. For empirical analysis, we used CPI as a proxy for inflation and employed quarterly data from 1970 to 2006 for Pakistan. The study classified two important models for forecasting out of many existing by taking into account various initial steps such as identification, the order of integration and test for comparison. However, later model 2 turn out to be a better model than model 1 after considering forecasted errors and the number of comparative statistics

Spectrum of surgical site infection on the surgical floor; Increasing resistance to routine antibiotics

Objective: To know the spectrum of surgical site infections in general surgical patients so that specific strategies can be developed to decrease the morbidity caused by these infections.Material and Methods: All the patients who underwent general surgical operations on an emergency basis at the surgical unit of the District headquarters teaching hospital Rawalpindi from 01-01-2016 to 31-12-2017 were evaluated for surgical site infections. Surgical site infections suspected clinically were confirmed by culture and sensitivity. Involved flora and their sensitivity to various antibiotics were also determined.Results: Among 2202 emergency operated patients, two hundred and thirty-seven patients (10.76%) had surgical site infection confirmed on culture and sensitivity (C/S) report. About sixty-five percent of patients were male. Of two hundred and thirty-seven positive patients, the twenty-nine patient underwent laparotomy for penetrating and blunt abdominal trauma. Staph aureus was present in one hundred and forty-five (79.67%) patients. E.coli was the commonest Gram-ve micro-organism (70.95%). Forty-six patients (19.40%) were sensitive to Cefoperazone sodium followed by twenty patients (8.43%) to Piperacillin sodium and twenty-one (8.86%) each to Amikacin and Linezolid.Conclusion: Surgical site infection causes a significant rise in morbidity on the surgical floor. Most of the causative microorganisms are becoming resistant to routine antibiotics. Sensitivity to the broader spectrum of antibiotics like Cefoperazone and Linezolid is increasing

Evaluation of Functional Decline in Alzheimer’s Dementia Using 3D Deep Learning and Group ICA for rs-fMRI Measurements

Purpose: To perform automatic assessment of dementia severity using a deep learning framework applied to resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data.Method: We divided 133 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients with clinical dementia rating (CDR) scores from 0.5 to 3 into two groups based on dementia severity; the groups with very mild/mild (CDR: 0.5–1) and moderate to severe (CDR: 2–3) dementia consisted of 77 and 56 subjects, respectively. We used rs-fMRI to extract functional connectivity features, calculated using independent component analysis (ICA), and performed automated severity classification with three-dimensional convolutional neural networks (3D-CNNs) based on deep learning.Results: The mean balanced classification accuracy was 0.923 ± 0.042 (p < 0.001) with a specificity of 0.946 ± 0.019 and sensitivity of 0.896 ± 0.077. The rs-fMRI data indicated that the medial frontal, sensorimotor, executive control, dorsal attention, and visual related networks mainly correlated with dementia severity.Conclusions: Our CDR-based novel classification using rs-fMRI is an acceptable objective severity indicator. In the absence of trained neuropsychologists, dementia severity can be objectively and accurately classified using a 3D-deep learning framework with rs-fMRI independent components

Metacognitive Instruction and Students’ Achievement in Solving Mathematical Word Problems

Mathematics is considered as an important subject of elementary curriculum throughout the world due to its use in different fields of life. The compulsory component of mathematics is mathematical word problems. Word problems are considered as the difficult part of mathematics not only by students but mathematics teachers as well. Special teaching strategies are required to teach mathematical word problems to cope with the recent educational standards. Metacognitive instruction for teaching word problems has been proved affective by different educationists and researchers of world. Metacognitive instruction uses the hypothetical definition of metacognition, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills and practicing of self addressed questions. Students are practiced to ask a series of self addressed questions while solving word problems about: understanding, connection, strategies, and reflection. The present study was an attempt to experiment metacognitive instruction for teaching mathematical word problems on sixth class students at Govt. High School Abbottabad and to check its effectiveness as compared to traditional method of teaching. The study used true experimental research design; specifically the pretest-posttest control group design with 80 subjects (40 + 40) and data was collected and analyzed by t-test and descriptive analysis. The finding of study proved metacognitive instruction as an effective method for teaching mathematical word problems at elementary level

Exploring relationship among factors of virtual communities, trust and buying in Pakistan

Currently the world is experiencing a tremendous growth in the use of social networking sites (SNS). Virtual communities is Increasing day by day, there is still a lack of studies analyze on role of virtual community in impulse buying on the base of trust. Dramatic change in the technology it play role for the virtual communities. Virtual community is a group of people who share common interest and practices, who tend to communicate to each other on the regular base over internet via a common mechanism or location (e.g. social networking websites). Generally, virtual communities serve discussion forums where people communicate with each other and sharing common interest via an electronic media. Virtual communities play role both the retailer and consumer to communicate and discuss information regarding various product of interest

Relation of corporate governance with financial performance

The intention of the work is to prove that corporate governance is essential to uninterrupted operation of any corporation, while more consideration to the process such that governance. Hence it is transparent what is commonly intermediate by corporate governance. This work proves a link with the corporate governance and firm financial performance in insurance industry of Pakistan. It included three variables which are Audit committee independence, board independence and CEO duality for corporate governance. The degree of firm's performance is limited by return on equity and asset. This work gives a positive direction for exploring this concept

Surgical site infection; effect of contamination and duration of surgical procedure

Introduction: Surgical site infections are responsible for increased treatment cost, prolonged hospital stay and increased morbidity on surgical floor. Increased level of per operative contamination and prolonged surgery increases the incidence of surgical site infections.Objective: To know the effect of contamination and duration of surgery on the incidence of surgical site infections in emergency surgical patients so that specific strategies can be developed to decrease the morbidity and mortality caused by these infections.Materials and Methods: All the patients who underwent general surgical operations on an emergency basis at the surgical unit-1 of the Benazir Bhutto Hospital Rawalpindi from 01-01-2019 to 31-12-2020 were evaluated for surgical site infections. The level of contamination per operatively and duration of surgery were documented. Surgical site infections suspected clinically were confirmed by culture and sensitivity.Results: Among 2202 emergency-operated patients, two hundred and thirty-seven patients (10.76%) had surgical site infection confirmed on culture and sensitivity (C/S) report. About sixty-five percent of patients were male. Of two hundred and thirty-seven positive patients, seventy (29.09%) patients underwent laparotomy for penetrating and blunt abdominal trauma. About fifty-eight percent of SSI patients had contaminated wounds per operatively. Operative time was one to three hours in about sixty-seven percent of SSI-positive patients. Staph aureus was present in one hundred and forty-five (79.67%) patients. E.coli was the most commonest Gram-ve micro-organism (70.95%).Conclusion: Surgical site infection causes a significant rise in morbidity on the surgical floor. Increased levels of contamination per operatively and prolonged operative time increase the incidence of SSI in emergency surgical operations