Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL Interventions

In countries where English is a foreign language, universities are expected to enhance the communication skills of their students after overcoming the deficiencies that they typically carry over from their schooling years, and the challenge for universities is to achieve this through the few mandated courses. This paper describes an auto-enthnographic case study of a series of interventions for improving the English teaching outcomes over a decade by the dean of a private university of Karachi. Each intervention was ref ined over a number of semesters through several execution cycles consisting of design, implementation and evaluation. Interventions were tried and tested until the outcomes could no longer be improved with the given resources. Issues identif ied through the evaluation of a particular intervention led to the design of subsequent interventions. The interventions consisted of changes made to the number of courses, grading criteria, selection of learning methodology, assessment strategy, hiring qualif ications, teacher development, medium of instruction for technical courses, design of environmental culture, quality control across multiple sections, level of student engagement, intensity of instruction doze, lab and instruction credit hours, assistance from senior students, and out of the box designs of course interactions. Experiential learning and analysis of these interventions demonstrated that traditional classroom based interventions centered on a teacher do not work unless they are accompanied by immersion experiences in innovative, collaborative and flexible learning environments. Experiential Learning and Project Based Learning (PBL) techniques which can stimulate and inspire the students were found to be more effective. The study proposes an innovative structure for conducting English courses that would provide an immersion experience to students which would be concentrated in time and space to help overcome many of the identified issues

Evaluation of prevalence of low and high level mupirocin resistance in methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates at a tertiary care hospital

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the trend of mupirocin resistance in MRSA, isolated at the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory of a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: A total of 200 MRSA strains recovered over a 2 year period from various body sites were tested using the 5 and 200 microg discs of mupirocin to detect its resistance. RESULTS: High level and low level mupirocin resistance were detected in zero and 1% of MRSA strains, respectively. Resistance to other non beta lactam antibiotics was also high. No MRSA strains were found to be resistant to vancomycin and tegicycline. CONCLUSION: Mupirocin resistance was found to be very low among local clinical isolates of MRSA. Its judicious use to decolonize nasal carriers should be promoted among hospitalized patients to avoid further transmission and infections due to prevalent endemic MRSA strains in any health care setting. Concomitantly, regular surveillance and effective infection control initiatives are desirable to reduce the incidence of health care associated infections due to MRSA and also of mupirocin resistance

Effect of Oral intake of Stevia Leaf Powder on Body Weight – An Experimental study

Introduction: The steviol glycosides are found  in the stevia leaf. These glycosides possess sweetening properties as well as they have antioxidant, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycemic, and anti-hypertensive effects. This study was conducted to  find out the effect of Stevia leaf on body weight in obese Sprague Dawley male rats. Materials and Methods: This experimental study was carried out on 90 Sprague Dawley male rats. Group1(normal control) was given a standard diet for the entire study period, while the remaining sixty rats were given a high-fat diet (HFD) for 8 weeks to induce obesity. The obese rats were randomly assigned to group 2 (Obese Control) and Group 3 (obese + Stevia) and given HFD for another 6 weeks. The stevia leaf powder was added to the diet of group 3. Diet intake was noted for all the groups. Rats were weighed on the first day of every week, for six weeks, and then at the end of the study period.      Results: Body weights of rats in each group, at the start and end of the 6-week intervention period, when compared, showed a significant increase in group 1 (p=0.001), and group 2 (p = 0.001), while group 3 showed a non-significant increase (p = 0.248). The percentage increase in body weight for groups 1, 2, and 3 was 4.8, 9.3, and 1.1, respectively. Graphically, the weekly increase in average body weights of the three experimental groups showed maximum values for group 2. Conclusions: Stevia leaf possesses weight-reducing effects which may be due to inhibition of appetite, reduction in food intake, and consequent weight loss. Keywords: Obesity, weight loss, Natural non-nutritive sweeteners, Stevi

Isolation frequency and susceptibility patterns of Nocardia species at a tertiary hospital laboratory in Karachi, Pakistan

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Antimicrobial sensitivity pattern, demographic findings and risk factors amongst meningitis and non-meningitis invasive streptococcus pneumoniae at aga khan university hospital clinical laboratory, Karachi, Pakistan

Objective: To determine the resistance rate of penicillin and ceftriaxone amongst invasive meningitis and nonmeningitis isolates of streptococcus pneumoniae. Methods: The prospective cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2011 to March 2014 at the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory of Aga Khan University, Karachi, and comprised all invasive strains of streptococcus pneumoniae. Penicillin and ceftriaxone susceptibilities were performed and interpreted based on minimum inhibitory concentration breakpoints recommended by Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. Data was analysed using Stata 12. Result: There were 163 strains isolated from sterile body fluids of 109 patients. Of the total, 46(28%) samples were meningitic while 117(72%) were non-meningitic. Of the meningeal isolates, 12(26%) were resistant to penicillin, while none was resistant to ceftriaxone and vancomycin. None of non meningeal isolates showed resistance to penicillin, ceftriaxone or vancomycin. Conclusions: There was considerable penicillin resistance among meningeal strains of streptococcus pneumoniae, but here appeared to be no need to add vancomycin for empirical treatment of invasive streptococcus pneumonia infection

Technology Transfer, Development, Deployment and Productivity Performance in Pakistan

Productivity (TFP) performance is not only influenced by the direct effects of human capital, R&D (technology development)), embodied and disembodied forms of technology transfer and know-how through capital imports, FDI and use of foreign IPRs (technology transfer activities), but importantly is indirectly affected by compo-nents like the interactive effects of machinery and equipment imports, royalties and licenses fee payments, FDI, human capital and technology deployment. In this context, we analyzed internal technology building capabilities, trade-related technology transf-er activities and foreign technology absorption capabilities. The ARDL technique demonstrates that stable long-run association exists amongst all the chosen variables. The results indicate that investment in human capital boost the TFP, in addition expenditures on R&D, imports of machinery are crucial determinants of TFP growth. Surprisingly, FDI appears with a negative sign but the indirect effect of FDI through its interaction with human capital is positive. This indicates that FDI in the presence of human capital plays a favourable role in enhancing TFP. Moreover, the imports of machinery directly and indirectly, in association with both human capital and R&D, increase the growth of TFP. These findings provide evidence that internal technology building capabilities enhances the TFP growth significantly; while, embodied form of technology transfer has a positive and significant impact on the growth of TFP; whereas, disembodied technology transfer exerts positive but statistically insignificant impact on TFP growth. Furthermore, the study lends support for the existence of strong foreign technology absorption capabilities

Emergency incisional hernia repair: a difficult problem waiting for a solution

Background Emergency repair of incarcerated incisional hernia with associated bowel obstruction in potentially or contaminated field is technically challenging due to edematous, inflamed and friable tissues with occasional need for concurrent bowel resection and carries high rates of post-operative infectious complications. The aim of this study was to retrospectively assess the wound related morbidity of use of permanent prosthetic mesh in emergency repair of incarcerated incisional hernia with associated bowel obstruction. We also describe a new technique of leaving the mesh exposed to heal by secondary intention with granulation tissue. Methods Between 2000 and 2010 a total of 60 patients underwent emergency surgery for incarcerated incisional hernia with associated bowel obstruction with placement of permanent prosthetic mesh. The wound was closed after hernia repair in 55 patients while it was left open to granulate in 5 patients. Results In the group of patients with primary wound closure, 11 patients developed superficial surgical site infection, 5 developed deep wound infection and one patient had cellulitis. These patients were treated with wound debridement and antibiotics. Mesh removal was required in one patient. There were no infections in the group of patients who had their surgical wounds left open. One patient in this group died on the fifth postoperative day from septicemia. Conclusion Use of permanent prosthetic mesh in emergency repair of incarcerated incisional hernia with associated bowel obstruction. in contaminated field is associated with high risk of wound infection

β-lactamase production and antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of moraxella catarrhalis isolates: report from Pakistan

Objective: To assess the frequency of β-lactamase production and antimicrobial resistance in Moraxella catarrhalis isolated from clinical specimens in Pakistan. Methods: This cross sectional study (January to December 2010) was conducted in clinical microbiology laboratory of Aga Khan University Hospital. A total of 97 clinical respiratory specimens growing Moraxella catarrhalis were included. Frequency of β-lactamase production and antimicrobial resistance rates against ampicillin, erythromycin, ciprofloxacin and tetracycline were noted by performing minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). MICs were calculated as MIC50 and MIC90. Results: β-Lactamase production was detected in 84% of isolates, which correlated well with high MIC of ampicillin. Majority of isolates were susceptible to erythromycin (97%) and tetracycline (96%) with MIC90=0.12 mg/L and MIC90=1 mg/L respectively. All isolates were found susceptible to ciprofloxacin (MIC90=0.06 mg/L). Conclusions: Result suggests that empirical use of ampicillin should be discouraged while treating respiratory tract infections. This also emphasizes the importance of continuous surveillance in order to detect emerging resistance in Moraxella isolates

Isolated cryptococcal osteomyelitis in an immunocompetent patient

bstract Cryptococcosis is a rare infection in HIV-negative individuals. While the lungs and the central nervous system are most commonly infected, skeletal cryptococcosis is uncommon and isolated osteomyelitis due to Cryptococcus neoformans is quite rare. To our knowledge, only 47 cases of isolated cryptococcal osteomyelitis have been reported from 1974 to 2005. We report a case of isolatedcryptococcal osteomyelitis in an immunocompetent patient, who received 12 weeks of fluconazole with complete recovery