Leveraging Machine Learning to Understand How Emotions Influence Equity Related Education: Quasi-Experimental Study

Background: Teaching and learning about topics such as bias are challenging due to the emotional nature of bias-related discourse. However, emotions can be challenging to study in health professions education for numerous reasons. With the emergence of machine learning and natural language processing, sentiment analysis (SA) has the potential to bridge the gap. Objective: To improve our understanding of the role of emotions in bias-related discourse, we developed and conducted a SA of bias-related discourse among health professionals. Methods: We conducted a 2-stage quasi-experimental study. First, we developed a SA (algorithm) within an existing archive of interviews with health professionals about bias. SA refers to a mechanism of analysis that evaluates the sentiment of textual data by assigning scores to textual components and calculating and assigning a sentiment value to the text. Next, we applied our SA algorithm to an archive of social media discourse on Twitter that contained equity-related hashtags to compare sentiment among health professionals and the general population. Results: When tested on the initial archive, our SA algorithm was highly accurate compared to human scoring of sentiment. An analysis of bias-related social media discourse demonstrated that health professional tweets (n=555) were less neutral than the general population (n=6680) when discussing social issues on professionally associated accounts (x2 [2, n=555)]=35.455; P\u3c.001), suggesting that health professionals attach more sentiment to their posts on Twitter than seen in the general population. Conclusions: The finding that health professionals are more likely to show and convey emotions regarding equity-related issues on social media has implications for teaching and learning about sensitive topics related to health professions education. Such emotions must therefore be considered in the design, delivery, and evaluation of equity and bias-related education

Post-operative Status of Facial Nerve in Cerebello-Pontine Angle Lesion via Retro-Sigmoid Approach; Complications and Outcome

  Objective:  To assess the post-operative status of Facial Nerve in cerebellopontine angle (CPA) lesion via retro-sigmoid approach and also its complications and outcome. Materials & Methods:  This prospective study was conducted at the Department of Neurosurgery, JPMC Karachi from a period of 10-12-2021 to 10-06-2022.The sample size of our study was 37 patients. All the patients were operated for CPA lesions and followed for three months to assess the outcome efficacy. Results:  Our study showed that the mean age was 37 years, with a range of 27 to 65 years, in which the males were 18 (48.6%) and the females were 19 (51.4%). Out of 37 patients, 28 (75.7%) were diagnosed with vestibular schwannoma, while 6 (16.2%) were meningiomas, and 3 (8.1%) were epidermoid cysts. Gross total resection was performed in 14 (37.8%) patients, while subtotal resection (STR) in 23 (62.2%). Facial nerve function in terms of House-Brackmann at 3 months was found to be grade I in 26 (70.3%), grade II in 9 (24.3%), grade III in 1 (2.7%), and grade IV in 1 (2.7%). Conclusion:  The CPA is a small corridor through which important neurovascular structures pass. Identification of CN VII is important in large CPA tumours to preserve facial motor nerve function.  For all kinds of CPA lesions, gross total excision should be the aim of surgery

Sustainable Energy Alternatives Experimentation at SCT

Sustained energy generation is very important for any region's economic growth either developed or developing. As the growth of the country depends on sustainable and efficient power generation management, in order to attain the sustainable energy generation, experimentation, and explorations in the latest avenues for these generations have to be carried out. In this paper an attempt is made to report the experimentation carried out at Salalah College of Technology (SCT) in terms of sustainable energy generation using alternate energy resources. Experimentation carried out at SCT for solar harnessing in sustainable transportation and wind energy alternatives for hybrid power generation at decentralized levels is tested. Experimentation results for individual experiments are not disclosed. Whereas the overall efficiency in using such alternate technologies for sustained power generation and comparisons with other likewise locations are reported in this paper. Document type: Articl

The Surgical Outcome for Prolapsed Lumbar Intervertebral Disc Based on Visual Analog Scores

Objective:  To determine the surgical Outcome for a prolapsed lumbar intervertebral disc based on a visual analog score. Materials and Methods:  A prospective study was conducted in the Department of Neurosurgery at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi. A total of 55 patients were included in the study. Questionnaires were used to collect demographic data, presenting symptoms, and the level of the herniated discs. The patients underwent different surgical interventions and then these patients were followed for 2 weeks postoperatively and the surgical outcome was assessed using the Visual Analog Score (VAS). Results:  A total of 34 (61.8%) males and 21 (38.2%) females were included in this study. The average age of the patients was 36.14 ± 9.30 years. L5/S1 was the most commonly affected level. Laminar fenestration was the most common surgical procedure done in 23 (41.8%) patients followed by hemilaminectomy in 19 (34.5%) patients and bilateral laminectomy in 13 (23.6%). Post-operative pain was relieved in the majority of patients which is 43 (78.2%). Conclusion:  Medical management remains the mainstay in the majority of patients having lumbar disc prolapse. However, in cases where the pain is refractory to conservative management, surgery is considered after careful patient selection. It was seen that surgical intervention successfully reduced the intensity of pain and resulted in a symptomatically improved patient. Hence it is safe to conclude that surgery is an effective measure and ultimately enhances the quality of life

An investigation of Students’ Organizational Problems of Cohesion and Coherence in English Essay Writing at Higher Secondary Levels of Sindh, Pakistan

Academic writing is a form of testing; moreover, most of the writing tasks and assignments across the country school curriculum, the designers of the writing assignments is also the audience and the evaluator, and that designer-evaluator expects student-writers to demonstrate particular knowledge and skills. Hence, like all the tests designers, developers of writing assignments should carefully consider different purposes, the parameters and constraints, and the evaluation criteria for each writing assignment. In this paper, we discussed organizational problems in essay writing such as, topic sentences, thesis statements, cohesion, coherence, completeness and unity. We applied a qualitative method for data collection.  For this, we selected one hundred students to write essays on different topics. Among them, we chose twenty written essays for data analysis. The findings suggested that students have organizational problems in English essay writing. It was found in their writings that most of the students have difficulties in organization their essay. Students get difficulties in introduction, topic sentence, thesis statement, transition of ideas, and use of cohesive devices, sequence and writing conclusion. There are certain reasons. Firstly, the effects of background information of particular topic and general information. Secondly, the low language proficiency, the students get it difficulty to create coherence and unity in their writings. It is because they give more importance to language and meanings

Caries Spine: A Comparative Study between Medical Management Alone with Combined Medical and Surgical Management

Objective:  To compare short term outcome of combined surgical and medical management versus medical management alone in caries spine.Material and Methods:  This study was conducted from August 2015 to August 2018, on 68 patients randomly divided into two groups of 34 each. All were diagnosed cases of Caries spine based on history, clinical examination, ESR and imaging appearances. Group A underwent surgical intervention along with Anti-Tuberculous Treatment (ATT) while Group B received medical treatment (ATT) alone.  Results:  There were 37 (54.41%) males and 31 (45.59%) females with mean age of 34.84 ± 10.6 years. The thoracic spine was the commonest site in 33 (48.5%) patients, followed by lumbar in 20 (20.8%), dorso-lumbar in seven (10.3%) and cervical in four (5.88%) patients. The ESR fell from 85mm/hr to 24.46mm/hr in Group A and to 41.92mm/hr in Group B (p = 0.0124). Overall improvement in Frankel grade was seen in 25 (73.5%) patients in Group A and 12 (35.3%) in group B. In group A, improvement seen from grade A in two (8%), grade B in three (12%), grade C in 12(48%), Grade D in seven (28%) patients, (p = 0.000) while eight (23.5%) patients remained same and only one (2.5%) deteriorated from baseline neurological status. In Group B, 16 (47%) patients remained same and six (17.6%) deteriorated. Conclusion:  Surgery combined with antituberculous therapy was found to be beneficial in patients suffering from caries spine and to be recommended to patients desiring rapid recover

Preference of farmers towards private and public extension services

The main purpose of this study was to know the preference of farmers for different services provided by private and public extension agencies. In recent times involvement of private extension agencies has been increased in agricultural sector and up to some extent it has sidelined the public extension agencies, but public extension agencies have potential to do better and to reach farmers at their best. In view of this, present study was undertaken to find out the farmers’ preference towards public and private extension services in Ambala, Kurukshetra, Karnal, Hisar and Fatehabad districts of Haryana state. From each district two blocks were selected randomly and from each block two villages were selected. A manageable size of 10 farmers was selected from each village thus making total sample size of 200 farmers. Various aspects related to agricultural services provided by both public and private agencies were identified and response were obtained by putting a tick mark as per farmers’ preference for private and public agencies. On the basis of statistical tools like rank and mean score, results showed that farmers had great preference for ‘Input supply’ in private extension as compared to public extension followed by ‘Infrastructure facilities’. While for ‘Consultancy and diagnosis services’, ‘Information’ and ‘Technical services’, public extension was preferred as over the private extension

The Prevalence of Low Vitamin D3 Levels in Patients with Lumbar Disc Herniation and Its Relationship with Different Patient Parameters

Objective:  To determine the prevalence of low vitamin D3 levels in patients having proven lumbar disc herniation and its relationship with different patient parameters. Materials and Methods:  This is a prospective study carried out on 100 patients at the Neurosurgery department, Jinnah postgraduate medical center from Feb 2018 to April 2019. Serum Vitamin D levels and other characteristics were assessed in patients with prolapsed lumbar intervertebral discs. Low levels of Vitamin D were defined as insufficiency (10 ng/ml – 30 ng/ml) and deficiency (< 10 ng/ml). Results:  Out of 100 patients in the study, only 21% had optimal serum vitamin D3 levels, and 79% had hypovitaminosis (57% insufficient and 22% deficiency). Low vitamin D levels were prevalent in all age groups, with deficiency more prevalent in the older age group (p-value = 0.004). The BMI (body mass index) of the patients showed a linear correlation with vitamin D levels. Conclusion:  Decreased vitamin D levels are prevalent in patients having herniated lumbar discs. The study showed that older-aged patients and high BMI exhibited severe vitamin D deficiency. As a result, recommendations are that preventive initiative for this specific hypovitaminosis target a broader population to intercept the occurrence of low vitamin D levels and the associated repercussions

Thrombotic and Hemorrhagic Complications Following Left Ventricular Assist Device Placement: An Emphasis on Gastrointestinal Bleeding, Stroke, and Pump Thrombosis

The left ventricular assist device (LVAD) is a mechanical circulatory support device that supports the heart failure patient as a bridge to transplant (BTT) or as a destination therapy for those who have other medical comorbidities or complications that disqualify them from meeting transplant criteria. In patients with severe heart failure, LVAD use has extended survival and improved signs and symptoms of cardiac congestion and low cardiac output, such as dyspnea, fatigue, and exercise intolerance. However, these devices are associated with specific hematologic and thrombotic complications. In this manuscript, we review the common hematologic complications of LVADs

G-20 economies and their environmental commitments: Fresh analysis based on energy consumption and economic growth

The impact of economic growth and energy use is still controversial regarding sustainability, and researchers have limited consensus in this regard. Electricity is considered more environmentally friendly compared with direct fossil fuel consumption. However, many developed economies still depend on fossil fuel sources for electricity generation. Therefore, this study attempted to verify the relationship between electricity consumption and carbon emissions in developed economies in the Group of Twenty (G20). Economic growth and foreign direct investment are other important variables for analyzing this relationship. For this purpose, a dataset from 1995–2018 was generated. The study used econometric methods including cross-sectional dependence, cointegration, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square (FMOLS), Dynamic Ordinary Least Square (DOLS) estimators, and the Pair-wise panel Granger causality test to examine the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The findings show a positive relationship between electricity consumption and CO2 emissions. This indicates that electricity production is still dependent on sources that help increase CO2 emissions in G20 countries. Furthermore, the results show that gross domestic product and its square term confirm the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory for these economies. These results suggest that policymakers promote green and clean electricity sources for sustainable economic growth